


This Christmas I'll Give You My Heart

by GoldenTruth813



Series: Home Is In your Heart [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, Christmas, Digital Art, Family Feels, Fluff, Getting Together, Gingerbread Decorating, Ice Skating, Inspired by Hallmark Christmas Movies, M/M, Mutual Pining, Reunited Best Friends, Romance, Sharing a Bed, Shiro in Plaid Thirst, Small Towns, Snowed In, Working Through Grief, art & fic, past canon parent death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21972616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenTruth813/pseuds/GoldenTruth813
Summary: After a few years away at college, Keith finally returns to his small hometown for Christmas break. What he finds there is everything he thought he'd left behind and more.A story of family, friends, love and a little Christmas magic.
Relationships: Keith & Krolia (Voltron), Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Series: Home Is In your Heart [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1600981
Comments: 103
Kudos: 404





	This Christmas I'll Give You My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collab with [Loppadraws](https://twitter.com/loppadraws) whose art you'll see in the fic below and it was an absolutely delight to work with them.
> 
> Christmas might be over but its always a good time for holiday inspired sheith.
> 
> Thank you whiskyandwildflowers for the wonderful beta! <3

[ ](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/657586978887434240/659757365490614312/86B3639B-2477-4DD2-84F2-0ED674561C2B.jpeg)

Hell had a name and it was the Sincline Express—the direct bus line from upstate New York to Colorado.

Keith knew exactly how long he’s been in hell too. Fifty-three hours. Fifty-three hours and twelve minutes to be exact. The first few hours hadn’t been too bad. He’d been high off finishing his finals and filled with the naive hope that a bus trip might end up being better than a plane trip. They’d advertised unlimited free Wi-Fi which Keith had been looking forward to. After the semester from hell, including taking twenty units and working his part time job, the idea of nearly two days of alone time where the only expectation would be eating and binge watching Netflix had sounded like an actual vacation. It was just that Keith hadn’t counted on having a seatmate who never shut up, talking incessantly even when Keith popped in his earphones or spent hours playing Candy Crush on his iPad with the volume on high. The novelty had worn off around the time the Wi-Fi went on the fritz from fifty people trying to access it at once. It got worse during hour seven when one of the toilets got clogged leading to an abhorrent smell reeking from the back of the bus and a line of people weaving down the aisle and making Keith feel like he was stuffed into a sardine can.

It worsened when the heater went on the fritz and the air conditioning turned on instead, leading to most of the passengers rummaging through their bags for extra blankets or sweatshirts in the overhead compartments. After all that horror, Keith had thought at least he might be able to sleep the rest of the way home, but every time he closed his eyes the kid in the seat in front of him threw scraps of wadded up wet paper at his face. Keith didn’t even want to know why the fuck they were wet. 

All in all, it was an excruciating amount of time to be spent on an overcrowded bus with people who didn’t know what deodorant was—an especially revolting prospect in a closed space with poor ventilation—as well as being surrounded by a handful of screaming kids who clearly wanted to be on the bus about as much as Keith did, and a seatmate who still smelled like the tuna sandwich he’d recently eaten. And honestly, what kind of asshole ate tuna on a bus anyway? Fuck that guy. As if his odorous taste in food wasn’t bad enough the guy also possessed zero sense of personal space. Ignorant of Keith’s own inability to sleep and inner turmoil, his asshole of a seatmate was currently snoring—his legs spread wide and infringing on Keith’s precious twelve inches of space for himself—and his head had dropped down onto Keith’s shoulder no less than four times in the last hour alone.

To say Keith was miserable was an understatement. 

If only his last final hadn’t been postponed by three days because his professor got violently ill, then he wouldn’t have missed the only available flight back. He could’ve been on a perfectly reasonable six-hour plane ride home with free-inflight movies and the little bags of pretzels Keith liked so much. Instead he was stuck on a two-day bus ride with Tuna Face snoring on his shoulder and a kid who made Keith never want children of his own in front of him.

The bus was turning out to be so bad that Keith was almost looking forward to getting back home, which was saying something since he hadn’t stepped foot in his small hometown in nearly two years. Not even the death of his father six months prior had been enough to drag him back to the place he’d worked so hard to get away from.

Almost.

Beside Keith, Tuna Face belched in his sleep, and Keith wished for death.

He pulled his phone out of his hoodie pocket to check the time and sighed. Another forty-five minutes until their expected arrival. Forty-five more minutes until he was back in the place he’d spent the first twenty years of his life. Back in the place he loved and hated in equal measure. 

Despite having had the last fifty plus hours with nothing to do but sit and think about what going back might be like, he didn’t feel in the least bit prepared. The more he thought about it, the tighter his chest got and he reached for his bottle of Coke, unscrewing the top and chugging the last few ounces of flat, warm soda he’d been saving for an emergency. 

He wondered if everything in town would look the same. Would the streets still be decked out like a Hallmark movie, and would the nosy townspeople be up in everyone’s business so that you couldn’t even sneeze without someone else knowing about it? Would the sky seem as big and vast as it had when he was nineteen and full of big dreams and an aching heart?

He sighed again, shoving his phone back into his pocket and willing his heart to slow down. He just needed to take this one step at a time. All he needed to do was help his mom go through his dad’s stuff and hopefully avoid the people—or _person_ —he’d left behind.

Then once Christmas break was over, he’d be on the first flight back to New York and his last semester of college. All he needed to do was survive the next two weeks without dredging up too much of the past, and his life could go back to normal. Whatever the fuck normal was.

Keith could totally do that.

***

Nearly an hour later the bus was finally pulling into the station. Keith had never been so happy to see his stupid small town with its single bus stop and its perfectly trimmed hedges and lightposts wrapped in garland and lights in his entire fucking life.

Ignoring all semblance of patience or politeness, Keith leapt from his seat the second they were given the go-ahead. Most of the passengers seemed to be in a stupor, half-asleep or exhausted, and Keith took advantage of their delayed reflexes to secure his spot as the first person allowed off the bus. He ignored the disgruntled sounds of Tuna Asshole as he slid sideways into Keith’s abandoned seat, and the stuck-out tongue he received from his least favorite small human ever, snatching his worn duffle from the overhead compartment and throwing it over his back as he ran to the front of bus and waited for the automatic doors to swing open.

The first burst of cold air was like a balm to Keith’s soul and he closed his eyes, inhaling the crisp clean scent of Colorado air. Then he opened his eyes and walked off the bus, inhaling another deep breath that filled his lungs. No tuna smells. No sewage odor. No children’s Youtube playing on loop. Just fresh air and open sky.

“Keith!” a voice yelled, and something tightened in his chest at the familiar voice. 

Open sky and _his mom_.

He’d heard her voice over the phone a million times since he left, even more over Facetime since she insisted on using that more times than not claiming she missed his face. Moms were biased like that, and Keith could never say no to her, especially since he privately missed her face too. But hearing her voice across the tiny cracked screen of his iPhone wasn’t the same as seeing her wide smile across the parking lot, lit up under the fluorescent street lamp.

She looked exactly the same and a strange ache took hold in Keith’s chest, blossoming as it spread across his heart. 

“You’re home,” his mom cried, sprinting across the parking lot and enveloping Keith in a hug. She kissed the top of his head and hugged him even tighter, as if he was a child, and Keith let her. Fuck, did he let her. It’d been so long since someone hugged him, he’d almost forgotten what that type of embrace felt like.

The tension from his long bus ride dissipated, the same way his troubles as a child always had the second his mom scooped him into her arms. He wondered if you ever outgrew that sense of safety you had around your parents. His dad had exuded it in spades—had this way of making Keith feel like everything would be okay. But he was gone now and so much had changed.

“Hi, mom,” he whispered, dropping his duffle bag to the ground as he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her shoulder. 

She was wearing his dad’s favorite cable-knit scarf and she smelled like a strange mix of motor oil and her favorite perfume. Keith closed his eyes and tried not to cry at the familiarity of it. He was a twenty-two-year-old man now, not a little kid who need his mommy when things got tough. He should definitely pull out of the hug, especially with everyone piling off the bus around them and probably watching. Keith hated doing anything to draw attention to himself.

“I missed you so much, baby,” she said, kissing the top of his head again.

Keith sniffled, rubbing his face against her coat. Maybe he could let her hug him a little longer. Just for her sake.

“I missed you too.”

“Then don’t stay gone for two years next time, huh,” she laughed, ruffling his hair into complete disarray in the way only a mom could ever get away with.

He pulled out of the hug, scrubbing at the corner of his eyes as a wave of guilt assaulted him.

“I’m so sorry, Mom. I should’ve come home when Dad died but it was—” he stopped, unsure what to say. He’d wanted to tell her again how busy he was, which wasn’t a lie. Between double majoring in art industrial design and fine art, his internship at the art gallery across town, and his part-time job at the coffee shop on campus, Keith barely had enough free time to breathe, let alone take a week off for a funeral. But the truth was, he hadn’t wanted to. Keith hadn’t taken news of his father’s death well, nor had he been able to face the idea of coming home without his father in it. His mom had understood, the way all moms did. But there wasn’t a day that went by where Keith didn’t feel guilty for it.

“Hey, stop it,” his mom chided, unwinding the scarf from around her neck and transferring it to Keith’s. It was the first thing of his father’s Keith had touched since he died, and only the bone-deep fear of crying in public kept his tears away. “I can feel you overthinking. I’m not angry. I told you that.”

“You needed me and I wasn’t here,” Keith whispered, giving voice to the feelings that had been growing in his chest for months.

“Oh honey, the only thing I need is you safe and happy.”

“Mom,” Keith sighed, already prepared to feel guilty. His mom apparently was having none of it.

“No way, young man. Don’t you _mom_ me. We all grieve in different ways, okay. There’s nothing wrong with the way you chose to do it. I won’t lie and say I didn’t miss you—that it wasn’t hard. But don't you think for one second I was ever angry with you or resented you for anything. I’m tough, alright. I loved your father more than anything and I miss him every day, but I'm okay. It’s a good kind of missing. He gave me a good life, and you, and I can’t be sad for all the joyful memories I have left.”

“Do you think Dad would’ve been mad?” Keith asked, almost afraid to ask, but desperate to know now that they were talking.

His mom looked surprised then shook her head. “No, baby. No. He loved you so much. He was so proud of you going off the big city and living your dream. He had pictures of you all over his desk at the firehouse, used to bore everyone to tears telling them about your classes and grades and then your internship. Nothing you could do, or not do, could take away from how much your dad loved you. And me too. I’ll love you until the day I die and longer. No matter what, you hear me?”

“Yes,” Keith whispered, tightening the scarf around his throat in the pathetic hope it might hide the quiver in his jaw.

“Good, now let's get home,” she said, retrieving Keith’s duffle and throwing it over her shoulder like it wasn’t as heavy as a meteorite. She wrapped her arm around his shoulder, turning his attention to the rest of the parking lot—and his truck.

“You brought Red,” Keith said softly, assaulted with another wave of emotion. The one downside to going to school so far away was that he’d been forced to leave his truck back home. Red was a fully restored 1950 Chevrolet truck with leather seats, crisp white wheels, and a cherry red paint job. Keith had spent his entire summer when he’d turned seventeen restoring that thing with his dad. He’d been too scared to drive it across the country and risk damaging it, so he’d left it in his parents’ garage.

And now here she was, as beautiful as he remembered her to be.

“Course I did. She’d been in storage awhile so she needed an oil change and some fresh brake pads, but she drives like a dream.”

Well that explained the smell of motor oil. 

“Thanks, Mom,” Keith uttered as they walked towards the truck. Apparently, being emotionally overwhelmed was just going to be his new normal for the next two weeks. He’d known coming home would be a lot to handle, he just hadn’t counted on how grounding it might feel to see his mom in person, or how comforting it was to lay eyes on Red again.

“That’s not all I brought,” his mom said with an air of self-satisfaction. 

“Please say there’s coffee in there,” Keith sighed, desperate for some caffeine.

“Of course there is. Would I pick up my boy without a thermos of fresh coffee?”

“Fuck I love you, Mom.”

She laughed, throwing the duffel into the back of the truck. “I love you too, honey. But I wasn’t talking about the coffee.”

“Then what—“ Keith began, breaking off when a familiar head popped up in the window. “Kosmo!”

Kosmo barked, paws scraping at the window as he howled—desperate to get out. Keith didn’t even care that Kosmo’s claws might be ruining his interior. She’d brought his dog. God, he’d missed him so much.

Without hesitation, Keith yanked the passenger door open, then immediately fell on his ass as Kosmo leaped out of the car and onto him. 

“I see I wasn’t the only one who missed you,” his mom laughed as Kosmo whined, looking like he didn’t know what to do with himself. 

“I missed you too, buddy,” Keith whispered, stroking his hands over Kosmo’s thick fur. Kosmo barked again, licking a long path up the side of Keith’s cheek as he pawed at Keith and continued to whine. Keith felt stupid for entertaining the idea that Kosmo might’ve forgotten him. 

“I’m right here, Kosmo, it’s okay,” he soothed as Kosmo plopped his entire fifty pound body in Keith’s lap as if afraid he might move. He shoved his wet nose against Keith’s cheek, panting. “I’m home.”

The words felt strange on his tongue. Home. He was home.

Kosmo licked his cheek again and Keith laughed, overwhelmed by Kosmo’s reception. There was something comforting about knowing no matter how long he’d been gone or what mistakes he made with the people he loved, at least his dog would always love him.

He buried his face in Kosmo’s fur and definitely didn’t cry.

***

The incredible thing about being home, aside from Kosmo and his mom’s company, was home-cooked food. After two years of existing on nothing but ten cent Top Ramen, cereal, and pizza, coming home to his mom’s homemade rolls and casserole for dinner had been incredible. He’d eaten enough that he was sure he was going to need to be taken to his room in a wheelbarrow.

The bad thing about being home though was, well—home-cooked food.

Because dinner had been over six hours prior, and Keith was hungry again. Except his mom had nothing to eat. Well, nothing except farm fresh eggs, drawers of produce, and leftover casserole. Even the cupboards were devoid of snack food and instead filled with things like dried beans, flour, and pasta. Real food. For cooking. Actual honest-to-god grown people types of meals. But Keith didn’t want to cook and he didn’t want a meal. He wanted a fucking snack.

Keith sighed, eyeing the clock over the stove—1:27 am. It was way too late to go to the Grocery Outlet which he knew from memory closed at ten. That was one of the shittiest things about small towns. Everything closed so early. Living in New York, he’d gotten used to everything being open twenty-four hours a day. Whether he needed a new highlighter at three in the morning, or had a craving for Indian takeout, he could always get it. Besides the Grocery Outlet, there was nothing else in town besides quaint little gift shops, the meat market on Central, and more antique stores than one town could ever conceivably need. No Target. No Walmart. No 7-11. Fuck.

There was always the option of going to bed and hoping the rumble in his tummy abated. He’d been awake for so long now he was practically delirious, and sleep was probably the smartest choice. And yet, he didn’t want to sleep. He was still too keyed up. He and his mom hadn’t done anything besides eat and talk all day, leaving the harder stuff for later. But being back in his childhood home where every crack in the floor and photo on the wall held more memories than Keith could bear was a lot to handle. That, and Keith’s sleep schedule was a joke. After classes he either had his internship or his job—on the longest days, both—and then mountains of classwork to finish too. Most days he barely had time to eat or breathe, let alone sleep, and didn’t crash into bed into three or four in the morning, barely stumbling back out of bed by nine a.m. the next day for his morning classes.

So yeah, sleeping wasn’t an option.

A thought took form in Keith’s mind. A terrible, horrible wonderful thought.

Marmora Motors.

He wondered if it was still there. Marmora Motors was a small gas station on the edge of town that for some reason had always been open really obscene hours. The owner, a man named Kolivan, never had posted hours and simply opened when he wanted and closed when he wanted. As a teenager he’d spent more hours than he cared to admit sitting on the curb out front eating his body weight in peach rings with—he stopped, biting off the thought. He didn’t want to think about with who. He didn’t want to think about a lot of things.

It was possible that Kolivan had retired by now, or maybe if he hadn't that the place wasn’t even open at this hour, but there was only one way to find out.

Decision made, Keith snagged his keys off the kitchen island and went outside immediately shivering from the cold. For a few seconds he considered turning around and heading back into the house where it was warm and toasty then decided against it. Keith wanted something unhealthy, and he wanted it now.

Keith sprinted across the driveway, his Converse nearly causing him to slip before he jumped into the car and shoved the keys in the ignition. The engine roared to life, and Keith flipped the heater on high, tapping his knee as he waited for it to heat up.

The drive across town was quick, and Keith did his best not to pay attention to the charming lamp posts covered in garland, white Christmas lights and Christmas-shaped tinsel decor. He tried not to notice all the shops with their hand-painted windows, and tried not to think about how many memories one street could hold.

Back at school he was used to change. Half the stores that lined the shop-filled street beneath his shitty apartment building changed every few months. Something new was always opening, and a place Keith liked would one day be out of business. There was no stability. But back here, everything was the same. Somehow, that set Keith’s nerves on edge to think about what else might still be here—what else he’d left behind that might be the same.

As he neared Marmora Motors he saw the bright fluorescent lights above the single gas pump on and smiled. It was open. Jackpot.

He slowed his truck, turning into the gas station and immediately realized he wasn’t the only person with a late-night cravings. Keith parked in the front spot, hopping out of his truck and pausing to admire the sleek black motorcycle parked beside him. He let out a low whistle of appreciation. It was a thing of beauty, exactly the type of bike—no. He stopped himself. That thought was treading into dangerous territory. He was here for junk food not a trip down memory lane.

Keith spared one final glance at the beautiful bike then tugged his hoodie over his head, shoving his hands into the oversized front pocket as he made his way to the front door. The bell dinged as he walked inside, but the cash register was noticeably empty. It only took him a few seconds to notice that the door to the back store room was cracked and Keith could only assume Kolivan was getting something from the back. He’d see him soon enough when he paid anyway.

The black bike out front and the unwanted thoughts it dredged up were momentarily forgotten as Keith laid eyes on the overflowing chip display in front of him. Heaven. He was in heaven.

Doritos, Fritos, Lays and Keith’s personal favorite—Funyuns. He grabbed two bags, because self-restraint was a farce and turned towards the register, then stopped. If he went home now with only chips he was going to hate himself in about half an hour when the salt rush was over and he wanted something sweet. 

His eyes roamed over the array of sweets by the register but he frowned. He hated Reeses, and candy bars with nuts were invented by the devil. Keith wasn’t even a big fan of chocolate period, actually. No what he wanted was a bag of gummy rings. The good ones dusted in sugar and so sweet it would give him a cavity. The kind he used to always have in his backpack in high school. The kind he’d get when he made late-night junk runs with—fuck. He blew out a breath.

Peach rings. Keith wanted peach rings. Not memories.

He moved down the side aisle, hoping to find them, but apparently in the time he’d been gone Kolivan had moved the end cap full of pegged Two-for-wo dollar candy. Damnit. He glanced up at the register but Kolivan was still gone. That meant if Keith wanted his candy, which he really fucking did now that the idea was in his head, he’d have to find it himself.

Humming quietly he meandered down the aisle, grabbing a Red Bull on his way because why the fuck not. Then he rounded the corner and saw the entire end cap of bagged candy—victory. A feeling that abated two seconds later when he realized the person who must've been the owner of the black motorcycle was also in perusal of the sweets.

A person Keith knew better than he knew himself. Or used to anyway, before he’d left.

“Shiro,” Keith whispered, before he could stop himself.

Shiro looked up, eyes wide in undisguised surprise. He rose from where he was crouched looking at the bottom row of candy to his full six foot four inches of glory and Keith wanted to cry. He was just as beautiful as ever, maybe even more so. He was dressed in a pair of thin grey joggers that did nothing to hide the girth of his thighs or tiny waist. A waist which was on full display beneath the world’s tightest white thermal. There was a soft-looking scarf looped around his neck and the top few buttons of his thermal were open to reveal an expanse of pale skin and the corner of a collar bone. 

It was only in noticing that, despite it being an unholy hour of the day, Shiro looked like an actual winter god—his eyes nearly luminescent against the bright white of his shirt and scarf—that Keith realized what he was wearing.

Then, for the second time in two days, Keith wished for death.

“Keith,” Shiro murmured, and Keith nearly went weak at the knees at the sound of his voice. Fuck, had Shiro’s voice gotten prettier?

“Uh, hi,” Keith mumbled, tugging on the hem of his sweatshirt. A sweatshirt that used to be Shiro’s. A sweatshirt Shiro had given Keith right before he left for New York, hugging Keith tight and begging Keith not to forget him, to not let anything change despite the thousands of miles that would soon separate them.

Keith had promised he wouldn’t. But apparently Keith was both an asshole and a liar, and now Shiro was here in the flesh looking like an angel and reminding Keith of all the things he’d left behind. And Keith? Keith was wearing the sweatshirt of the love of his life and best friend hed left behind and somehow lost touch with despite promising not to, and his jeans had holes and there was paint splattered on his hoodie and his hair was an actual hot mess. Disaster. Keith was a disaster, and no one was supposed to have seen him dressed like this, especially not Shiro.

Fucking fuck.

“You look good,” Shiro said, straightening his shoulders a bit. He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, and Keith’s heart clenched. Shiro did that when he was nervous. He was nervous in front of Keith. There’d been a time when the only person neither of them were nervous around was each other. But that was before. Things were different now.

“Liar,” Keith scoffed, shoving his food hoard under his arm and tugging the cuffs of the hoodie over his hands. “I look like shit.”

Shiro opened his mouth then snapped it shut. Keith wanted to say something—wanted to say so much. _You look good. I’m sorry I stopped texting. When did you get a motorcycle? How are you? I miss you._

“Still have a sweet tooth, I see,” is what came out of his mouth instead.

Shiro’s cheeks pinked as he looked down at his hands and the dragon hoard he was holding between his prosthetic and left hand—a king size Kit Kat, a package of Oreos, a Snickers, and a bottle of chocolate milk. 

“Uh yeah, just a little bit,” he laughed. “Still love Funyuns, huh?” 

It was surreal to be standing in gas station making awkward small talk with the person who, at one point in Keith’s life, had known every single thing about him.

“My favorite,” Keith shrugged, unsure if he was desperate for the conversation to end and put him out of his misery, or to last forever so he could hold on to the memory when he went back home. 

Of all the things Keith had felt unprepared to face when coming home, Shiro was at the top of his list. 

“I can’t believe you kept the sweatshirt,” Shiro said, chewing on his bottom lip again. It made him look closer to fifteen than twenty-four. There was something painfully endearing about Shiro when he was nervous. The realization that Keith could still read his body language after all this time was like a knife to the heart. 

“Of course I did, why wouldn’t ?” Keith asked, worrying the cuffs between his fingers. 

He was hyper aware of the obvious wear and tear on the hoodie, from the holes near his thumbs, to the splattering of paint across the chest. Would Shiro be able to tell that it was Keith’s favorite piece of clothing and he’d worn it so much it was practically falling apart? Or would he think the distress meant Keith didn’t care about it at all? The idea of him assuming the latter made Keith feel sick. 

“Oh just, you know,” Shiro said, clearly going or an air of nonchalance and failing. “Things change.”

Not everything, Keith wanted to say. But he didn’t know how. 

Mistaking his silence, Shiro offered him a soft smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. It was beautiful and a little sad, and it made something around Keith’s heart twist so that it felt hard to breath. 

“I should probably get going but, uh, maybe I’ll see you around,” Shiro said.

That was Keith’s chance—his golden opportunity to apologize for letting time and distance weaken their friendship, for letting his fear of his feelings come between them and be the thing that tore them apart. It was his chance to tell Shiro that not a day went by where he didn’t think about him or miss him. 

Instead what he said was, “Yeah, okay. It was good to see you, Shiro.”

Shiro exhaled slowly, the smile not fading from his eyes. 

“It was good to see you too, Keith.”

Then he walked away. 

The worst part was the fact that Keith left him. 

Keith had spent years of doing nothing but daydreaming about seeing Shiro again, or what he might say if he ever got the courage to say how he felt, and now he was letting him walk away.

It was a long time before Keith got his peach rings. Longer still before he paid. By the time he went outside, nothing of Shiro remained but the tire marks on the asphalt and the mark upon Keith’s heart.

***

Keith sighed as he dug around in his duffle bag which, after two days, he’d still yet to fully unpack in search of a clean pair of boxers.

Unpacking meant a level of permanence that Keith wasn’t yet prepared to deal with. He couldn’t bring himself to put his shirts and socks back in the same dresser he’d had since he was five years old. The dresser his dad had built him. The dresser Shiro had fallen off when Keith was five and Shiro had been trying to cheer Keith up by climbing on top and pretending to fly, then had fallen off and broken his nose. The dresser Keith had hidden the dirty magazines Lance gave him when he was fourteen until he realized he didn’t like women. The magazines had been replaced not long after by more dirty magazines, but this time the bodies in them were decidedly less female. 

Where the magazines from Lance had made Keith’s insides feel squirmy in all the wrong ways, the ones filled with men made Keith’s dick ache and his chest flutter. Especially the photos where the guys had dark hair and pretty lips and wide shoulders. It’d taken another year before Keith realized that all of the most prized pieces of his secret porn stash were the ones that looked like his best friend. Somehow that’d been harder to accept than being gay. Which was stupid, since it wasn’t like Shiro was going to be upset Keith was gay what with Shiro being gay too. But Keith didn’t want to be that asshole that assumed just because someone was gay it meant they liked him. 

Shiro meant everything to Keith— _everything_. He hadn’t wanted to do anything that might jeopardize that. 

Except he apparently had. He’d lost Shiro’s friendship and had no one to blame for it but himself.

“Fuck,” he cursed, shaking himself out of those thoughts as he kicked his duffel bag. That was exactly why he’d put off coming home for so long. The problem with small towns was that nothing changed. The town was the same, and Shiro was the same, and Keith’s stupid bedroom was even the same, and it made him think about things he usually tried really hard not to think about.

Keith gave his search one final attempt, a search which included dumping the contents of his duffel onto his unmade bed, and then sighed when he realized there wasn’t a single clean pair of boxers in the pile. He looked down at himself and frowned. He’d been wearing the pair he had on for two days and they probably smelled as bad as he did. He lifted his arm and sniffed then grimaced. Yeah, he smelled worse than a frat house on a Saturday night.

Keith was in desperate need of a shower. A shower and clean boxers and a clean shirt.

“Mom,” Keith shouted, hoping she might be in the near vicinity and come to his rescue without him having to leave the warmth and comfort of his room. When she didn’t answer he walked to the door and opened it a crack, trying again. “Hey, Mom!”

Still no answer.

Keith groaned. She was probably out in the garden or tinkering around in the garage. Since his dad’s death, his mom’s list of new hobbies included macrame, gardening, canning vegetables from said garden, antique furniture restoration, and, for some strange reason, painting garden gnomes. Keith had known she was doing these things because she told him over the phone, but it was one thing to know it objectively and another to come home and find strange new pieces of furniture shoved into every nook and cranny, the cupboards overflowing with pickled green beans, and a hoard of sinister looking gnomes staring back at him from the garden beds in the front yard.

If Keith had to guess, his bet was on his mom adding another creepy gnome to the front yard. Keith absolutely hated them and had it on good authority that if he looked too hard they might actually suck out his soul, but since they made his mom happy he kept that thought to himself. Though privately he wasn’t beyond daydreaming about chucking them all in the trash.

“Mom,” he yelled for a third time, taking the stairs two at a time. 

The front door was ajar so he could only assume his guess about the gnome takeover was correct. He tried to school his features and mentally prepare himself for telling his mom her painting was amazing and that her gnomes didn’t look like a tiny deranged set of alien warriors protecting the begonias. 

The door creaked open and, assuming it was his mom, he began to speak. “Hey, have you seen any of my clean underwear? All I’ve got on is the same pair I’ve been wearing for two days which smells like leftover roadkill and I—”

“Hello, Keith.”

Keith choked on his own saliva, grabbing onto the stair rail to keep from toppling down the remaining stairs face first. 

Shiro. Shiro was at his house. Or, more specifically, standing in his doorway. And not just standing in his doorway, but doing it with a freshly-cut Christmas tree thrown over his shoulder as if it weighed nothing and dressed like the Brawny paper towel man on steroids. A look that Keith was apparently very fucking into if it was on Shiro if the way his stupid traitorous dick responded to the sight of Shiro in plaid was any indication. 

As if any of that was bad enough, while Shiro was dressed like sex on legs, Keith was wearing his favorite sleep shirt— which had a hole in the left armpit, was two sizes too big, and hung off him like a potato sack. It was _comfortable_ , not attractive. 

“You’ll have to forgive him. Keith’s not a morning person,” his mom piped up, squeezing her way into the house. Kosmo trotted in behind her, always wanting to be apart of the action. Once in the house he followed Shiro, sniffing at his jeans and clearly trying to decide what to make of the tree.

“I remember,” Shiro said, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. There was a familiarity there Keith wasn’t sure he deserved, a familiarity that made his pulse race.

“It’s eleven, not really morning,” Keith interjected, unsure why he was saying something that didn’t help his case. Maybe the sight of Shiro had broken his brain. He definitely felt a little broken in more ways than one.

Shiro laughed hard enough the tree branches shook, raining Shiro in pine needles. Shiro brushed them off with his free hand, and the sight of his metal palm sliding over the plaid nearly undid Keith

 _Plaid_. What the fuck? Keith didn’t even like plaid. He wouldn’t be caught dead wearing it. Then again, Keith’s entire wardrobe was comprised of shades of black aside from Shiro’s hoodie. But on Shiro, it made Keith’s mouth literally water. It was like some primal part of his brain was activated at the sight of Shiro’s bulging arm muscles and strong forearms lugging around a goddamn tree.

 _Big_. Shiro was so big. 

Fuck, Keith’s brain was definitely broken and the perpetrator was plaid.

“You can put the tree in the living room, honey,” his mom told Shiro, patting his arm and sparing Keith from the need to act like a normal human.

Shiro held Keith’s gaze for another few seconds, then turned and walked through the entryway into the living room where he promptly began to set up the tree.

Keith didn’t hesitate to run down the remaining stairs to stand behind his mom.

“You didn’t tell me he was coming here,” he hissed.

“Ah, about that,” she said, looping an arm around Keith’s waist and leading him closer to the dining room. Presumably so Shiro didn’t overhear them. His mom was a lot better with social niceties than Keith was. “I drove into town for a few groceries while you were sleeping and ran into Shiro in the parking lot. We got to talking—he’s such a nice boy, Keith—and I mentioned that we didn’t have a tree yet and, well, you know Shiro.”

Keith swallowed. Yeah, yeah he did know Shiro. He _loved_ Christmas. The only person who loved Christmas more was probably Santa himself. 

Memories of Shiro as a knobby-kneed, big-eared kid showing up on Keith’s doorstep on Christmas morning—his bike abandoned in the driveway and his overflowing stocking clutched in his arms—flashed through Keith’s mind. Then he thought of Shiro at sixteen, the year he’d lost his arm—stuck in the hospital with a dinky two-foot artificial tree and bandages everywhere. He thought of Shiro at eighteen, fresh out of high school and officially taking the lead on the family farm and the way his smile had shone brighter than the sun that first Christmas he ran the tree farm.

There was goodness in Shiro, always there at the core of who he was, but it came to life at Christmas.

There was no way in hell he’d let them not having a tree fly. Especially not when Shiro knew very well that cutting down the tree each year had always been Keith’s dad’s thing. Guilt swirled in Keith’s chest. He noticed the lack of tree when he got home but assumed his mom didn’t want one this year. It hadn’t occurred to him that maybe she just hadn’t been up to getting it.

“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t realize this would upset you. I know Shiro is sort of a _we don’t talk about this_ subject but—”

“No, it’s fine,” Keith interrupted, unwilling to have this conversation while standing in his boxers with Shiro two rooms over. No fucking way. If Keith didn’t want to have that conversation on a good day then he definitely didn't want to have it today after being caught looking like a Gremlin.

Shiro cleared his throat and Keith jumped, turning sheepish eyes on him. Keith really fucking hoped he hadn’t heard them. Shiro was so polite, even if he had he’d never say so.

“It’s, uh, all done.” Shiro shoved his hands into his pockets, an act which served to highlight how damn tight his jeans were and made Keith’s dick twitch with renewed interest. Apparently not even his own embarrassment was enough to stave off an erection in the face of Shiro dressed like that. Fuck. “I gave it a fresh cut in the driveway so it’ll be desperate for some water. You’ll just wanna do that soon before the sap seals the base.”

“Of course. Thank you so much, Shiro. You want some coffee while you’re here?” his mom asked.

“Sure that’d be—” but Shiro stopped, licking his lips and turning his eyes on Keith. “Uh, maybe to go? I don’t wanna impose.”

Something twisted in Keith’s gut at the idea that Shiro thought he wasn’t welcome. Keith’s house had been like Shiro’s second home for over a decade. Then again, Keith couldn’t blame Shiro for worrying that might have changed. So much had changed in the last few years and it wasn’t like Keith had been very forthcoming with his feelings about, well, anything.

“You’re always welcome here, you know that,” Keith whispered.

Beside him, his mom made a soft noise. “Right. I’ll just go put on the coffee pot. I think I’ve got some sugar cookies left too. You two just, uh...stay here.”

Then she was gone, leaving Keith and Shiro alone.

“I don’t have to stay,” Shiro said with a little shrug of his shoulders. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or anything. I can—”

“Stay,” Keith blurted, heart nearly rattling out of his chest. “Please.”

“Oh,” Shiro breathed, looking surprised. The knife in Keith’s heart twisted again. “Okay, if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” Keith said, trying to mentally figure out how he was going to hide his growing erection from his mom and Shiro if this was actually happening, which apparently it was. He was definitely gonna need to excuse himself for the good ol’ waistband trick. “I mean, if you want to that is. Don’t feel obligated or anything.”

“I don't...feel obligated I mean,” Shiro clarified. He smiled, something genuine and sweet that made Keith’s dick take attention. God, he was so fucking pretty. “And I’d like to stay. I’d like it a lot.”

“Okay...okay, good,” Keith said, willing his heart and his dick to calm the fuck down.

Shiro’s smile grew and Keith gave up all pretense of pretending he thought he might survive the next few weeks.

He was going to fucking die, and the worst part was he’d probably like it.

***

As much as Keith loved his mom and had missed her, there were only so many hours he could spend at home with her before he felt like he’d die of boredom. He didn’t want to reorganize the canned vegetables in the pantry, he’d already weeded the entire garden without being asked just for something to do, and he couldn’t stand to be in the dining room because his mom had taken on a new gnome painting project and the gnome in question currently had no eyes which was creeping Keith the fuck out.

He desperately wished he’d brought his sketchbook and Copics home with him, or even his tablet, but he’d been so frazzled with finals and missing his flight and the last minute bus ticket he’d forgotten them all. 

He knew he could borrow some of his mom's paint if he really wanted but since it was all in the dining room, he refused to give any weight to that particular idea.

“You should go out,” his mom said, as if reading his mind. It was creepy how moms could do that.

“What? No I’m fine. You’re great company,” Keith said. It was only a partial lie. His mom was fucking awesome, but still she was his mom. His mom, who was also for some fucking reason currently making a macrame plant hanger.

His mom hummed noncommittally. “You’ve been tapping your feet for twenty minutes sweetie. I’m not offended if you’re bored. You should go downtown, maybe visit some of your old friends. I’m sure they’d all love to see you. You’ve been home for almost four days and besides visiting with Shiro the other day you’ve only talked to me.”

Keith wasn’t sure you could call what they did visiting. Mostly it was Keith and Shiro each trying and failing to pretend they weren’t staring at each other while his mom recounted the time he and Shiro had their first sleepover when Keith was five and she’d thought they lost Shiro until she’d pulled back Keith’s sleeping bag and found both of them huddled together. Keith didn’t remember that, but had blushed nonetheless at the idea of sharing such close quarters with Shiro. 

“No one wants to see me,” he scoffed. “I bet they probably all hate me for going away to school and losing touch.”

“I very much doubt they all hate you,” she objected. “Or, I know at least one of them who doesn’t hate you. He’s rather tall and handsome and ate all my cookies. I believe he goes by the name Sh—“

“Oh my god, no,” Keith yelled, leaping from the sofa. “I just...okay. I’m leaving. Right now.”

His mom smiled. “Where are you going, dear? Not a tree farm by any chance?”

Keith’s cheeks heated. Over the phone, his mom had let most of his bullshit slide. Apparently that wasn’t going to fly now though. He was so screwed. 

“No of course not. Why would I go there?” He mumbled. “We already have a tree.”

“I know but if you were looking for something else over six feet tall and thick then—“

“Oh, fuck no,” Keith loudly interrupted, slapping his hands over his ears. 

This was not happening. He’d only been back four days and already his carefully cultivated veil of disinterest was being pulled back to reveal things Keith wasn’t prepared to reveal.

For her part, his mom looked like she was trying not to laugh and only the fact that he liked the sight of her smile stopped him from feeling entirely put out over the current turn of events. Truthfully, he’d been expecting this type of thing to happen, and it was a wonder it had taken his mom so long to say something like that. 

“Despite your misgivings, I think it’s fairly obvious there’s still a great deal of affection between the two of you. There was a time where you two were thick as thieves. If losing your father has shown me anything, it's that it’s only too late to tell someone what they mean to us when they’re actually gone.”

The retort that Keith had been gearing up to deliver died on his tongue. He couldn’t exactly object to that, and she knew it. The only thing he could do was leave before she said anything else that made a lot of sense but that Keith didn’t want to deal with. 

“I’m just gonna go downtown and uh—“ he paused, unsure what the hell he wanted to do. Unless something major had changed, the only things to do on Main Street were shop for antiques, get a haircut, or eat. 

“Get some fresh air,” she supplied, still looking pleased with herself. 

“Yes,” Keith said, latching onto the idea as he walked backwards towards the front door. “I need new air. Definitely.”

“Okay, well you have fun, and don’t forget I’ve got a meeting with my book club tonight so you’re on your own for dinner.”

“Right, won’t forget,” he said, snagging his keys off the hook by the door and swinging them around his pointer finger as he slid his feet into his boots. 

“Oh, and Keith,” she said when he’d opened the front door. “Have fun.”

“Sure,” he agreed, for her sake, though he intended on having exactly zero fun.

***

The thing about small towns was that they felt as if they existed in their own reality.

Back in New York, Keith was lucky if the people driving in the street looked up long enough to notice he was crossing. Here, all he had to do was get close to the sidewalk and the cars stopped on both streets. Keith hadn’t needed to run for his life, the cars had simply _stopped_ for him. It was startling for him to realize how unused to that level of consideration and politeness he’d gotten. Not that people in New York were unkind, at least not most of them. But everyone was so busy all the damn time no one had time to stop and think about other people.

Unlike here, where Keith had dropped onto the sidewalk after an hour of wandering aimlessly trying to decide what to do, and three different people had immediately taken in his slouched position on the sidewalk and his clothes and apparently mistaken him for homeless. He’d chased all three of them down, trying to give back the money but each of them had declined and simply wished him Merry Christmas.

Keith wasn’t sure if the town had gotten nicer, or if Keith had simply gotten more jaded. 

It wasn’t just the politeness of everyone either. It was the decor.

Back in his apartment, Keith didn’t have a Christmas tree. Hell, he didn’t even own a single Christmas decoration—or decoration period, really. The first year he’d just been busy and broke, and then the next year he thought about decorating but it reminded him of the way Shiro used to always come over to Keith’s house to help decorate once he’d finished decorating his grandparents’ house. There hadn’t been a year that went by where Shiro wasn’t stringing up the popcorn garland while wearing a hideous Christmas sweater and singing Christmas carols. At least, not until Keith left.

Thinking about Shiro watching _White Christmas_ and making himself sick on hot cocoa as he strung the popcorn, or blasting _I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas_ as he decorated the tree was too much for Keith’s heart to bear so he’d simply avoided celebrating Christmas. At least until this year, apparently.

He wasn’t sure he had a choice now, walking around town which felt like the inside of a goddamn snow globe. The snow-lined streets were filled with strolling townspeople, each of the street lights was wound with shimmering garland and big red bows, and every single storefront had painted windows and Christmas lights twinkling in the low afternoon light. It was obscenely festive, and Keith felt as if his all black apparel made him stand out like a sore thumb.

There was even a small group of carolers near the bank on the corner singing a version of _Jingle Bells_ he’d never heard before.

Keith’s refusal to be festive was at war with his appreciation of music and before he knew it, his boots were inching closer and closer until he was standing on the curb opposite what he could now recognize as the senior class choir at the local high school. He’d almost forgotten that they always used stroll the streets just before Christmas in anticipation of their big pageant.

“It’s pretty isn’t it,” a voice spoke up and Keith nearly jumped out of his boots.

“Hunk,” Keith exclaimed, unprepared to be pulled into a quick but exuberant hug.

“Hey, Keith. I had no idea you were back in town.”

“Really?” Keith asked, surprised the rumor mill wasn’t going crazy.

“Uh, well,” Hunk paused, cheeks going red, “Shiro might’ve mentioned it once or twice, and Kolivan told me last night, and your mom might have told me half a dozen times last month, and I might’ve had a few customers today let me know they saw you wandering the streets and—”

“Jesus Christ,” Keith laughed, more amused than annoyed.

“Small town, buddy.”

“Yeah,” Keith agreed, shoving his hands in his pocket. “So how’ve you been?”

“Good,” Hunk said, and he looked like he meant it. “Finally opened up my diner last year. Business is good, even got to buy my mom a new car. Never been happier.” 

“That’s incredible, Hunk. Good for you. I’m sorry for you know...for not keeping in touch.”

Somehow it was easier to say to Hunk than Shiro. Not that he meant it more or less. Hunk had been a good friend, but Keith had never been as close to him as Shiro, as close to anyone else really. It felt less dangerous to say.

“Nah man, it’s okay. You were off making it big in New York, huh?”

Keith pulled his lips between his teeth. This was the other reason he’d been afraid to come back. People asking about his life there, asking how it was. Keith wasn’t sure there was a good way to say _It’s not everything I thought it would be and I miss what I left behind_ without sounding pathetic. He liked his school alright, and he fucking loved his major. But all the rest—the busy city life, coming home to an empty apartment the size of a shoebox every day, the city lit up with so many buildings he couldn’t see the stars—well, that wasn’t so great. It was a truth he’d been ignoring as long as he could, but every day back home reminded him of what he didn’t have in New York—a sense of community, family, friends and Shiro. Especially Shiro, if he were honest.

“Aw shit, Keith. Why didn’t you ever tell anyone?” Hunk asked.

Keith blew out a breath. This. This was why he didn’t have friends. When people knew you, then you couldn’t lie to them. The only person Keith was any good at lying to any more was himself, and even then his ability to pull the wool over his own stupid eyes was wearing thin.

“I didn’t—that is to say,” but Keith stopped. 

“I think you could use some pie. And coffee. Not to brag but I make the best pie in town.”

Keith ducked his head, unable to not smile in the face of Hunk’s, well—Hunkness. “You make the only pie in town.”

“Screw you buddy, or you won’t get the friendship discount,” Hunk laughed, playfully punching Keith on the arm. 

And just like that, things were fine. Keith kept waiting for Hunk to demand more of an apology, but he didn’t. Instead, he caught Keith up on the latest gossip as they strolled down the street towards Hunk’s diner. 

By the time they were stepping inside the charming building—the little bell above them chiming—Keith felt as if maybe everything would be alright.

“Look at that, your lucky day. I’ve got one booth left,” Hunk exclaimed, pointing to the small little booth by the window. Hunk hadn’t been kidding about business being good. Every table was crammed with familiar faces, and each of the barstools that lined the long counter space was full. Not that Keith was surprised—Hunk had always been a natural with food.

“Perfect,” Keith told him, smiling as he took in the booth in question. It had red leather seats, a poinsettia in a tiny red vase, and there were rows of Christmas lights hanging in the window above it. It was nothing short of charming and as Keith pulled off his leather jacket and inhaled the scent of freshly-brewed coffee and homemade pie, his stomach growled. 

He’d barely sat down and buried his face behind the menu, suddenly desperate for a lot more than just pie, when he heard an all-too-familiar voice.

“Hey, Hunk. I know it’s the afternoon rush and all but you wouldn’t happen to have any open spots would you? I’ve had the day from hell, and I could really use a slice of that cherry pie of yours.”

Keith dared to tip his menu down enough to peek over it. Standing just inside the doorway was Shiro. Once again he was dressed in plaid but unlike the day before when he’d looked freshly showered and straight out of a magazine, today there was dried mud splattered on his jeans and shirt, a long scratch across his cheek and, if Keith wasn’t mistaken, more than a few pine needles in his hair. He looked like he’d battled a forest sprite and lost.

It should’ve been pathetic and, well, maybe it was a little bit. But he was also still just as handsome as the day before. If anything, the hint of vulnerability in his tone made something deep in Keith ache to soothe it.

Keith saw Hunk quickly glance his way then avert his gaze just as swiftly. “Oh man, I’m sorry, dude. I could get you a piece to go though? I’m sorry, buddy. I know you always come in Thursdays, I just spaced. I know it’s not the same to go but—”

“No, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” Shiro’s shoulders sagged, but his voice was as bright as ever.

Before Keith knew what was happening, he’d dropped his menu and was speaking. “You could sit with me. Booth’s big enough for two.”

Shiro turned wide, surprised eyes on Keith.

“Keith.”

Keith shivered at the sound of his name in Shiro’s pretty voice. The sound of his name being uttered like the unexpected sight of him was something pleasurable. 

“Come on, big boy, you look like you could use a break,” Keith said, kicking his boot up beneath the table and tapping the booth seat. He hoped that was okay to say. It was exactly the kind of thing he might’ve said to Shiro before but now, well...he wasn’t so sure.

“I’ll just get that pie,” Hunk mumbled, clapping Shiro on the back before disappearing.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Shiro said, dropping down into the booth. Beneath the table his knees bumped Keith, long legs slipping into Keith’s side of the booth. He didn’t mind one bit.

[ ](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/657586978887434240/659757343558467614/A72D19F8-A57B-4632-842A-C78F823AD8E8.jpeg)

“It’s not a big deal,” Keith said with a shrug. “No one wants to eat pie out of styrofoam. Besides, you sorta look like you could use a break.”

“Could use a lot of things,” Shiro laughed, then seemed to think twice about what he’d said. 

He licked his lips as he sat up a little straighter, looking a little less comfortable than a few seconds prior. Keith missed the time where he wouldn’t have had to ask what Shiro wanted or needed, where he would’ve already known.

“Yeah, like what?” Keith asked, pushing things just a little bit. His heart ached to know more than basic politeness would allow, to know how Shiro _really_ was.

For a few seconds, Shiro didn’t say anything and Keith thought maybe he wouldn’t answer— thought that maybe he wasn’t allowed to ask that kind of question after so many months away. Then Shiro spoke, and a little piece of Keith’s heart shattered.

“I miss you, Keith.”

 _Oh._

Keith was not going to cry. He was not.

“I really fucking miss you,” he said again, scrubbing his hands over his face.

Fuck. Apparently they were doing this in the middle of a crowded diner. Maybe it was better Keith hadn’t seen it coming, then he didn't have a chance to run away from it. The scariest thing about all of it was the realization that he didn’t want to run away from it any more. 

“I miss you too,” Keith whispered. The words were easier than he would’ve thought they’d be to get out, and the knot around his heart loosened.

“Oh,” Shiro whispered with a visible exhale. “Yeah?” 

The fact that Shiro would be surprised about this revelation at all made Keith want to run face first into the street. 

“Fuck, of course I do. How could you not know that?”

“Ah shit, Keith. I dunno just...you know.”

The horrible thing was, Keith did know. They hadn’t had a falling-out or something dramatic. Keith had simply gone away to school and been really fucking homesick and lonely and busy, and had drowned under an inability to respond to texts or phone calls from anyone but his mom. He’d only answered her and his dad so often because he knew if he hadn’t, they would’ve got on a plane and shown up in New York.

At first, Keith had only been putting off getting back to his friends, and Shiro especially. He hadn’t wanted to confess to anyone that after a lifetime of dying to get out of their small town, he wasn’t happy. He didn’t want to admit that he wanted to come home. He’d hoped that as time went on, he’d settle and learn to love New York more than his hometown or, at the very least, have more exciting things to say when he got back in touch than _I found a rat in my bathroom_ or _I don’t have any friends here._

But the longer time went on, the harder it was to get back in touch. Logically, he’d known it was stupid—that Shiro would want to hear from him no matter what. He knew Shiro would understand, but somehow that made it worse. He didn’t know how to cope with that level of understanding and unconditional friendship. That, and he was sure that if he heard Shiro’s voice on the phone he might actually cry with the weight of how much he missed him.

Instead of dwindling over time, the fear and embarrassment and shame just kept growing. By the time six months had passed, Keith didn’t know how to pick up the phone and say _Hi I’ve been an asshole and I miss you so much_ so he’d said nothing, and the longer the he said nothing, the easier it became until pushing away his own feelings and ignoring all the things he’d left behind had become his new normal.

At least, until now.

“You...you're my best friend,” Keith said. Somehow it was the easiest and hardest thing he’d ever said in his entire life.

The air went out of Shiro at that, his body sagging. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, Shiro. I know, fuck, I know I lost touch but things were—” he stopped, clenching his jaw. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to tell Shiro. The time and distance that had separated them was a visceral ache in his heart. Now that he’d opened the door Keith wanted to tell him so much, but he didn’t know how. Especially not without accidentally letting it slip that his feelings went so far beyond friendship, even after years apart.

“It’s okay, Keith. You don’t have to explain,” Shiro said, knocking his knee against Keith’s beneath the table. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters to me.” 

And that was the thing. Keith knew it was true. Shiro said what he meant. He never asked for anything from Keith except what Keith wanted to give—he never had. Keith knew that if he said he didn’t want to talk about it that Shiro would respect that and never ask again.

Shiro was so fucking kind and good and self-sacrificing and beautiful, that two years apart had done nothing to quell the fire in his heart that burned for Shiro.

“I mean it, though. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, Shiro. I know maybe it hasn’t seemed like it lately but, fuck.” He stopped, sucking in a deep breath and mustering his courage. “You’re so important to me, and I’ll say it again if it helps.”

“Oh yeah, how many times you gonna say it?” Shiro asked, lips tugging up in the corner.

Shiro’s obvious happiness was contagious, and warmth spread through Keith.

“As many times as it takes.”

The smile that had been playing at Shiro’s lips blossomed into something big and beautiful and bright. “Might take a lot of times.”

“I think I can handle that,” Keith said, pressing his knee to Shiro’s.

The clearing of a throat made Keith jump, and he felt a blush spreading up to the tips of his ears.

“I hate to break up this love fest, but I have pie,” Hunk announced. “But, uh, we only had one slice of cherry left which I know is both of your favorites. I brought two forks though. I hope you don’t mind sharing.”

“No,” they both answered sat the same time.

“Good,” Hunk said, setting the pie down in the middle of the table and giving each of them a fork. “Enjoy, guys.”

“God, I’ve been dreaming about this pie for eight hours,” Shiro laughed, immediately digging his fork into the back end of the pie to get the most amount of crust.

“You should have it then, I can do without,” Keith said, pushing the plate towards Shiro.

He was proud of himself. He could totally do this. He could absolutely rekindle his friendship with Shiro without wanting too much.

Shiro paused, fork halfway to his mouth. “Nuh uh. What kind of asshole eats pie without sharing? You eat some of this pie right now or else, Kogane.”

“Or else what?” Keith laughed, already digging his fork into the opposite end of the pie where all the chunks of cherry were falling out—he liked the filling best anyway.

“Guess you’ll have to find out,” Shiro said with a wink, then promptly stopped talking as he shoved his oversized bite of pie into his mouth. A little bit of it got stuck to the corner of his lips—staining it red—as he let out a sigh of pleasure. It was nothing short of indecent, and Keith’s brain short circuited.

 _Nevermind_ , Keith thought, nearly choking on his own bite. 

He was totally fucked.

***

“So, you got home late last night,” Keith’s mom said, back turned to him as she pulled a fresh tray of cookies from the oven.

Kosmo whined but his mom shook her head, refusing to give him a cookie so he meandered back to his dog bed in the corner and flopped down for a nap.

“Yeah, I guess,” Keith mumbled, shoving the broken-off head of a just-finished gingerbread man into his mouth. 

He’d just spent twenty minutes decorating the cookie with perfectly piped on edges and hot cinnamon candies for eyes. Then he’d _accidentally_ broken it on the way to the finished pile and proceeded to shove it into his mouth. Technically, Keith was on frosting duty and wasn’t supposed to be eating the cookies yet, but Keith had never been very good at following rules. Thankfully his mom had already baked enough Christmas cookies to feed a small army, and if she noticed that a great number of her little gingerbread men kept disappearing from the decorated pile as swiftly as Keith was putting them there, well, she didn’t mention.

“Did you have fun?”

Fun didn’t even begin to describe the way Keith felt about his time with Shiro. Not that his mom knew he’d been with Shrio. All she knew was that Keith had come back late and then had immediately gone up to his room.

What had started as unexpectedly sharing a piece of pie had led to them sitting there for hours talking over an empty plate for so long that Hunk eventually brought them dinner. Over heaping piles of meatloaf and mashed potatoes with gravy and the world's best strawberry milkshake, they’d talked and ate and talked until Keith wasn’t sure what hurt more—his stomach or his cheeks from smiling. Hunk had finally kicked them out at closing time and despite neither of them being remotely hungry, they ended up at Marmora Motors sharing a Coke and a bag of peach rings just like they used to do when Keith was sixteen. 

It hadn’t felt like two years had passed. It felt like barely a day. 

Talking to Shiro was easy. Laughing with him was easy. Every single thing about being with Shiro was as easy as breathing. 

Keith hadn’t stopped smiling since. A fact which he strongly suspected had tipped his mom off to something. Though so far, she’d restrained herself from asking.

Keith also strongly suspected she’d been itching to ask him that since last night but managed to resist, so he hummed something that he hoped sounded like agreement, his cheeks crammed full of gingerbread cookie.

Keith waited for her to say something else, for her to ask what exactly it was that he'd been doing so late—especially since she’d sat up waiting for him last night like Keith was fifteen and not twenty-two. But she didn’t. At least, not immediately.

Instead, she lulled Keith into a false sense of security. 

“Here you go, honey,” she said, turning around and depositing another tray of perfectly baked little men on the table for Keith to decorate.

If someone had told Keith last week he’d be listening to Christmas music and spending an entire morning decorating six dozen gingerbread people and _enjoying_ it, he would’ve called them a liar. Yet sitting there ready to start on a new batch, Keith couldn’t deny that he was having fun. It wasn’t working acrylics or charcoal, but there was something methodical and soothing about the art of decorating cookies. Almost as soothing sitting as listening to his mom recount Christmases past spent with his dad while Keith frosted the gingerbread men with elegant swirls and crisp lines of icing.

Before Keith knew it, he’d finished all but one of the cookies and his mom looked happier than he’d seen her in a long time. It was a good feeling. Really good.

They fell back into a companionable silence as his mom set out rolling and cutting out a fresh batch of dough and Keith began to frost a new cookie. As his mum hummed _White Christmas_ , Keith got lost in the motion as he dragged the icing bag across the tiny gingerbread man, decorating him in a cute little Christmas outfit with a checked shirt and boots.

“Would you like to take to some of these cookies over to Shiro and his grandparents?” his mom unexpectedly asked, setting down a tin on the table. 

Keith blinked, startled out of his intense focus.

“Shiro?” he croaked, hoping his mom didn’t notice. “That’s kinda random.”

“Yeah, so random,” she tutted in a tone that Keith couldn’t quite place. He was pretty sure she was being sarcastic, but sometimes it was hard to tell with his mom. 

“What made you think of him?” Keith asked, setting down the bag of frosting and fixing his mom with what he hoped was his best _I’m innocent_ look. It hadn’t worked in nearly a decade, but it was always worth a shot.

“Oh, you know, just a hunch. I put plenty of cookies in there. You know how that boy loves his Christmas cookies. Don’t forget a scarf too, it’s supposed to get freezing this afternoon.”

 _Scarf_ , he scoffed. He hadn’t even agreed to go. 

“Oh, and Keith,” she said, clearly trying to repress a smile.

“Yeah?” Keith asked.

“I think that last cookie is your best work yet. The hair really makes it.”

Keith’s eyes furrowed up. _That hair_ , what the—oh fuck. The second his mouth fell open, his mom let her amusement ring clear, and it was all Keith could do not to scream.

There on the table staring back at him was a tiny gingerbread man decked out in a little striped shirt that looked way too familiar, and thick globs of white frosting falling across its cookie forehead.

_Shiro._

Keith had made a gingerbread Shiro.

Well, fuck.

***

It wasn’t until Keith’s truck was pulling into the long gravel driveway that led to the Shirogane Family Farm that he started to have second thoughts.

He’d jumped at his mom’s suggestion, excited about the opportunity to have an excuse to see Shiro. It’d been less than twenty-four hours and he already missed him, but had hesitated from reaching out by phone or in person, afraid of being too much. The cookies had seemed perfect. Keith could see Shiro without the emotional weight of having to admit he’d wanted to see him again already.

Except, as he turned the corner and the little farmstand came into view, the bottom dropped out of Keith’s stomach.

Somehow he’d been so excited to see Shiro, he hadn’t really stopped to think about the fact that he was, well,going to see Shiro. Going to see Shiro in a place that at one point was as familiar to Keith as his own home.

He’d spent his childhood running through strawberry fields, playing hide-and-seek in cabbage patches, and chasing Shiro up apple trees. As they’d got older, it’d been less about play and more about work, but somehow still as fun. He’d spent long summers helping Shiro’s grandparents run the fruit stand, refusing all forms of payment because all he wanted was to spend as much time as possible with Shiro. He remembered Autumn time spent piling up bales of hay and setting up the family pumpkin patch which drew people from miles away, and he especially remembered Christmas.

There was nothing like Christmas at the Shirogane family farm.

Their small farm was transformed into a Christmas wonderland. The front building was covered in Christmas lights and garland, with an oversized wreath hanging on the front door. Even the wooden fence that lined the parking lot was lovingly decorated in swags of fresh pine garland with big red velvet bows on every post. 

Everything about it was charming and idyllic, and mostly familiar. So fucking familiar. The sound of gravel beneath his boots as he exited the truck was the same. The scent of pine that filled his nostrils was so familiar that Keith’s chest viscerally ached. The little welcome sign that hung on the open gate door made Keith’s throat tighten because he recalled helping Shiro hang it there the summer before he’d left for school.

For one pathetic moment, Keith considered hopping back into his truck and driving home, already overwhelmed by memories. But then in the distance he caught sight of Shiro, and the world narrowed down to nothing but him.

It didn’t matter that the Shirogane farm was bursting with people eagerly searching for their Christmas tree, or that the familiarity of being there again filled Keith with as much comfort as guilt. 

The only thing that mattered was Shiro.

Shiro, who was currently lugging someone’s massive Christmas tree to their car over his shoulder like it weighed nothing while dressed in another fucking plaid shirt—and fuck, how many did he own now anyway?—a shirt that stretched across broad chest as if it was painted on. Keith’s mind flashed back to when Shiro’d brought over a tree to his house and he wondered if he was becoming lumbersexual. Or maybe it was just a _Shiro_ thing. He felt pretty confident he didn’t give a rat’s ass about plaid on anyone else but on Shiro, and it made him want to shove his fist into his mouth and scream. Add in his casual displays of strength and, well, yeah—Keith was only a man. A man weak for one plaid-covered mountain man.

The only saving grace in the entire situation was the fact that Shiro was so preoccupied chatting to the customer as they made their way to the parking lot that he hadn’t yet caught sight of Keith. Which was good, great even, because Keith was pretty sure he needed a good five minutes to physically and emotionally recuperate from seeing Shiro like that. It was like porn. Real life, primal-brained _he big, he strong_ fucking porn. 

Feeling like a fucking idiot and unable to care, he held the giant tin of cookies over his face and took off at a run for the small building, intent on sneaking inside to calm the fuck down before coming back out to say hi to Shiro. Problem was, he hadn’t counted on who might be inside.

“Keith Kogane, is that you?”

Keith paused in the doorway, dropping the cookie tin and gaping. No, it couldn’t be.

“ _Lance_.”

Lance beamed, straightening the little name tag on his elf apron and strolling towards Keith.

“In the flesh. Did you miss me?”

“No,” he answered, automatically. It wasn’t really the truth. As annoying as Lance was, he had missed him a little bit. Keith just wasn’t about to tell him that.

Lance frowned. “Fucking liar.”

“Language in front of the customers,” another voice chirped. Keith looked around for it, then spotted her, hidden behind the register and tapping away on a laptop.

“Hey, Pidge.”

“Keith’s not a customer, he’s a pain in the ass,” Lance retorted, grinning like he was the wittiest person in the room.

Keith refrained from saying _No, you are_. The last thing he wanted was to get into a war of words with Lance. His brain was still mush from seeing Shiro.

“Heard you were back in town. It’s good to see you,” Pidge said. She didn’t stop typing, but she smiled at Keith.

Keith didn’t bother asking how she knew. The town was small enough that any number of people could’ve seen Keith since he got back in town and the gossip chain worked faster than the postal service. Then again, if she worked here there was a good chance Shiro told her. The idea of Shiro talking about him filled him with warmth.

He’d spent so long refusing to admit he missed anything about home but now, standing in a place he knew so well with his old friends, he was hard-pressed to deny that he missed so many things—the people most of all.

“Whoa, you’re smiling. Are you sick?” Lance asked, laughing at himself.

“Oh my god, go sort apples or something,” Pidge groaned. “Ignore him, Keith.”

“Oh, fine. But not because you told me. Only because it needs to be done,” Lance grumbled, disappearing into the back room and leaving Keith alone with Pidge.

The second Lance was gone, Pidge slammed her laptop shut and fixed Keith with a serious look. “How’ve you really been, asshole?”

“I deserve that,” Keith sighed. “I’m sorry about being so shit at keeping in touch. It’s just...a lot.”

Pidge shrugged, leaning her chin on her hands. “It’s okay, life happens. I was just messing with you. No one is actually mad, you know. We all know how busy you are off living the dream in New York. We just...everyone misses you, Keith. That’s all.”

“I missed you guys too,” he said, shoulders sagging with relief at the confession. He’d been sure it would cost him something to say those words, instead it felt like a weight had been lifted.

“Shiro missed you too. A lot,” she said. “Like a lot.”

Keith’s cheeks heated. “Yeah, I know. He told me. I apologized about a million times.”

Pidge’s face screwed up. “No, I mean, like, he missed you _a lot_. A lot, Keith.”

“I really missed him too,” Keith said.

Pidge groaned loudly, dropping her face into her hands. “You two are so fucking stupid.”

Keith was about to ask her what exactly she meant by that, when the front door swung open and all coherent thought left Keith. In fact, he was at least ninety percent sure that his soul left his body.

“I thought I saw your truck in the parking lot,” Shiro said, shaking out his hair and grinning.

Keith grunted. He knew that was his opportunity to say something back, like a hello at least. But his brain had completely short circuited. 

Shiro was still wearing his plaid shirt except instead of being stretched taut across his broad shoulders, he’d removed it and tied the arms around his tiny waist. Beneath the plaid he wore nothing but the world’s thinnest white t-shirt. A white t-shirt with v-neck so deep Keith could see the swell of his pecs and the barest hint of dark hair that dusted Shiro’s chest. And nipples. Shiro’s nipples were erect from the frigid temperature outside, visible through the cotton of his t-shirt.

Unaware of Keith’s complete and utter gay panic, Shiro strode across the room and pulled Keith into a hug.

Shiro’s skin was chilled from the outside, but beneath that his body still radiated heat and his heartbeat was strong as he pulled Keith against his chest. Keith’s eyes fluttered shut at the embrace and he inhaled deeply, the scent of Shiro enveloping his senses. He smelled like fresh air and pine and the same body wash he’d been using since he was thirteen. Keith exhaled a shuddering breath as his body sagged, the only thing keeping him upright was the strong arms wrapped around his body.

“It’s good to see you, Keith,” Shiro whispered into the top of his head. 

“You too,” Keith mumbled into Shiro’s chest, worlds garbled against the cotton. He hoped Shiro understood the sentiment anyway.

“Wow, I’m just...gonna go...do anything else,” Pidge announced. 

Keith heard her footsteps receding, but it was impossible to focus on anything but the thrum of Shiro’s heartbeat and the way it felt to be in his arms. Shiro always gave the best hugs, so full of warmth. 

Keith could only assume Shiro was taking pity on him by letting the hug linger, and when he pulled back his cheeks were pink and there was a smile on his face.

“What are you doing here?”

“Cookies,” Keith blurted, shoving the tin out towards Shiro. “Mom made cookies.”

“You drove all the way out here to bring me cookies?” Shiro questioned, looking unmistakably pleased.

“I mean it wasn’t exactly a hardship,” Keith admitted. “Get to see you, and the farm. It looks amazing.”

“It looks exactly the same as always,” Shiro laughed, taking the tin of cookies from Keith and immediately prying the lid off.

“Yeah, well. It always was. I always loved it here.”

Shiro grinned. 

“Me too. Feels good to see you back here. It’s...oh, Keith. Is this me?” he asked, lifting up the tiny gingerbread version of Shiro. The resemblance was unmistakable and looking at Shiro holding the tiny cookie in his big hand made Keith wish a sinkhole would open up and suck him down into the Earth. He absolutely positively had not put that cookie in the tin. God fucking damn his mom. She must've snuck it in there when he’d gone to get his jacket.

“It’s, um, well—” but Keith simply broke off mid-sentence. He didn’t know how to explain his brain unconsciously thirsting after Shiro during Christmas cookie decorating. There was literally no normal way to explain this.

“It’s too cute to eat. I’ll save that one for later,” Shiro said, setting it back in the tin and plucking out another one. This time it was one of the more simply decorated ones with a little smiling face and buttons down its front. And absolutely no floof. “Thank you, Keith.”

“Oh, it’s uh...it’s nothing,” Keith breathed, forgetting to breath as Shiro chomped down on the head of his cookie.

Shiro smiled around his mouthful, swallowing down his bite then giving Keith the single most breathtaking smile he’d ever seen.

“It’s not nothing. I love it.”

 _I love you_ , Keith thought—the knowledge taking root in his brain. Now that he’d thought it, there was no escaping the obvious truth staring back at him. He was still completely in love with Shiro. 

“Good,” was what he managed to say, smiling at Shiro and hoping he couldn’t tell.

***

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” his mom asked. She was sitting on the couch under three blankets with a roaring fire, a massive cup of hot cocoa and the remote. Beside her Kosmo looked equally as comfortable, flopped out on top of a fleece blanket with his head on the little Santa pillow. Keith hadn’t asked her what she was going to watch but he strongly suspected she was about to spend the entire binge watching those ridiculous _Christmas Prince_ movies on Netflix.

It was exactly what she deserved. After a week of helping Keith settle, going through his dad’s things slowly, and making enough Christmas cookies to feed the entire town, his mom deserved a day to sit around and do nothing but watch horrible Christmas movies all day.

“I’m sure,” Keith told her, pulling on his leather jacket.

“I just hate the idea of you going all the way out to your dad’s cabin alone. It’s pretty remote and we’re supposed to get a pretty nasty snowstorm lately.” She wrinkled her nose in clear concern.

“Snow for Christmas would be cool,” Keith said.

His mom shook her head. “You’re changing the subject. Being out there alone could be—”

“I, uh—I’m not going alone,” Keith mumbled as he slipped his foot into his boots. He purposely stared at the black laces and not at his mom’s face.

“But who would you trust enough to take to— _oh_.”

“Oh, what?” Keith asked, unable to stop himself.

“You’re taking Shiro. I’m so glad you guys are talking again.” She smiled, sipping her cocoa.

Keith didn’t feel judgement, just a quiet acceptance. It was nice.

He hadn’t technically told his mom about how close he and Shiro had gotten again since he got back. Then again, she was his mom and he was sure she probably already knew without him saying anything. Moms were like that. 

Every moment that he hadn’t been with his mom the last few days had been spent hanging out at the tree farm again—shamelessly watching Shiro chop down trees like the world’s sexiest fucking lumberjack and then lug them across the parking lot like they were light as a cloud. He’d given up pretending he wasn’t turned on as fuck by the sight of well—everything Shiro did. Even watching him chug a glass of eggnog last night had somehow been erotic and Keith fucking hated eggnog. He figured his pining was safe so long as Shiro was preoccupied being the world's most polite and cheerful Christmas tree salesman—going so far as to even offer to come to an old lady’s house and set up for her tree for her if it was too difficult with the arthritis in her hands.

The only person who was gonna get hurt by Keith’s feelings was Keith.

He was determined that when he went back to school next week he wouldn’t lose touch with Shiro again. Ever. Shiro’d already made him promise to Facetime almost every day, and had even let Keith set up an Instagram for the farm. Shiro didn’t like social media much, rarely posted photos of himself. Somehow despite being the most attractive man to ever walk the Earth, he had no clue about how gorgeous he was. But Keith figured if Shiro made one for the farm, at some point Shiro was bound to slip in a photo of himself in between produce or pretty sunsets overlooking the orchards.

They were going to be best friends again.

Best friends forever.

If Keith’s time back had served to remind him how deeply and irrevocably in love with Shiro he was, well, that was something Keith could keep on hiding for the rest of his life so long as he didn’t do anything to jeopardize their friendship ever again.

“Yeah, yeah we have,” Keith finally answered. There was no point in denying it. One, because she was his mom and would know if he lied and two, because, well—she was his mom. Keith might’ve been the king of leaving out pertinent information, but he never lied to her.

“Good. You seem happier. I like seeing my baby happy.”

“Mom,” Keith groaned. “I’m not a baby.”

She laughed. “You’ll always be my baby, and there’s literally nothing you can do to change that. Sorry, sweetie. It’s part of the unbreakable mom code.”

“Fine,” Keith pretended to grumble, somehow not very put out by the idea.

“Drive safe, okay. If you see a hint of the storm coming, you should come home early. I know you wanted to help get your dad’s cabin sorted while you’re here, but it’s Christmas Eve. The last thing either of us want is you getting stranded and missing Christmas.”

“I’m not gonna get stranded,” Keith scoffed, snagging his keys off the hook by the door. “They’re probably exaggerating the scope of this storm anyway. The news always does that. You just watch, it’ll barely be a dusting. Besides, Shiro and I will only be there a few hours. I’ll be back before you know it. Just in time to catch you watching the end of _A Royal Baby_ and crying.”

His mom snorted, choking on her marshmallows. “I have no idea what you mean, I wasn’t going to watch that. And if I was, which I _wasn’t_ , I would not cry over a cheesy Christmas movie. So there.”

“Sure, Mom,” Keith laughed, watching her fingers twitch on the remote. “You keep lying to yourself.”

“Oh, get out of here you pain in the ass.”

“I thought I was your baby,” he laughed again. God he’d missed his mom. “You wound me, Mom.”

“Fine, get out of here you _baby_ pain in the ass.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Keith said, mock saluting her on his way out. The last thing he saw before he shut the front door was his mom clicking on _A Christmas Prince_.

***

The drive to his dad’s cabin took nearly an hour—a drive comprised of long winding roads that went off the main highway and veered into the Rocky Mountains. The roads were bumpy and deserted, but with Shiro at his side singing along to the Christmas music on the radio and smiling at him every time Keith caught his eye, it seemed like no time at all.

Despite Keith's time spent navigating the wild jungles of New York City, nothing compared to the true wilds of Colorado, with her wide open sky and picturesque mountains. The sky was clearer, the air crisper, and Keith felt more at home than he had since he’d come back.

By the time they pulled up to the small cabin, which looked more like a shack really, the anxiety Keith had felt all day about going through his dad’s stuff had nearly dissipated. It was still hard to think about him not being there, knowing his dad’s hulking figure and wide smile wouldn’t greet them in the doorway. But beneath the sadness were memories of coming out here as a child with his dad—weekends spent learning to start a fire from nothing, hiking to the stream for hours of fishing and cooking it over an open flame, and nights in the summer where he and Shiro would drag their sleeping bags outside to watch the stars.

There were so many good memories here, and Keith refused to let the ache of loss he felt taint those. His dad would’ve hated it, would’ve wanted Keith to smile every time he thought about him, not burst into tears.

Keith paused at the bottom of the steps to the cabin his dad loved. The cabin he’d built by hand. 

Keith could still recall in vivid detail the summer he’d built it—his mom driving him out a couple times a week to help, and his dad handing him nails and a hammer. He recalled the week Shiro had come out to help and warm summer nights spent drinking his mom’s homemade lemonade and eating hotdogs cooked over an open fire. Back when he’d still been a child. Back before he’d let life get in the way. 

It’d been so long since he’d been out here for more than a few hours. His dad had tried to get him to come out for a long guys camping weekend with him a few times, but the older Keith got, the busier he got too—whether it was his own hobbies, helping out at the farm, or working on his art submissions for college. It was all too easy to say later, later, later. 

Then Keith had got into his dream school and taken off to the other side of the country. _Later_ , he’d promised his dad. 

Except apparently later couldn’t come now. His dad was gone, and all that was left were four walls and memories.

“Hey,” Shiro uttered softly, a hand on his lower back. “You alright? You want me to stay outside for awhile, or just hang out in the car, or...anything. Whatever you need, Keith.”

“Dad would’ve liked to know we came together,” Keith said. “He loved you.”

The hand at his lower back wobbled, Shiro’s fingers pressing into his back. When he spoke, there was a tremble in his voice. “I loved him too.”

Keith paused at that, turning to look at Shiro who was offering him a wobbly smile. He’d been so caught up in his own worries and anxieties and grief, he hadn’t thought about Shiro’s. It was his dad, yeah. And he knew he deserved to grieve in his own way. But Shiro and his dad had a special bond too, always had, especially since Shiro’s elderly grandparents had raised him. Keith’s parents used to joke that Shiro spent more time at their house than he did at his own.

Keith’s dad had been the one to teach Shiro to drive, the one to tie his tie for senior prom, and the first person Shiro had come out to after Keith.

“I’m sorry, Shiro. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here. For you or mom—” Keith bit off the words, the sting in his eyes too much to ignore. He’d pushed away this feeling for so long. Missing his dad. Missing Shiro. Missing his home.

And now he was here, and everything was the same but different, and it was so much.

“You’re here now, Keith. It’s all that matters,” Shiro whispered, clapping him on the shoulder before pulling him into a hug. 

Instead of resisting the unexpected onslaught of emotions, Keith let them come as he fell against Shiro’s chest—body heavy with the weight of his grief. 

At first the tears that came were like the first sprinkles of rain in spring—barely wetting his cheek. But as Shiro’s hands rubbed soothing circles at his lower back—all the while reminding him how much his dad had loved him—the sprinkles turned to a full blown storm as the tears wracked his body. Keith cried like he hadn’t cried since he was seven years old and broke his leg jumping off the roof. Except this time there was no Spider-man bandaid disguised as a bravery badge or cool red cast for his heart. 

There was no magic solution that could erase the sting of grief and regret.

All the while Shiro remained, silent but unwavering in his support as he hugged Keith without letting go. It was exactly what he needed. His mom, for all of her strengths, wasn’t exactly great when Keith cried and usually ended up crying too. Not to mention that back in New York he didn’t have any friends close enough to talk about things like feelings with. But Shiro knew what he needed—a literal and figurative shoulder to lean on.

“Feel better?” Shiro asked when Keith had stopped crying. He pulled back from the hug to get a look at Keith’s face, but let his hand rest and the back of Keith’s neck.

“A little,” Keith answered honestly. He’d built up this idea in his head of crying as this horrible thing, but Keith didn’t feel worse now that it was over. In fact, he felt better. He was a little emotionally worn, but mostly he felt lighter as if some of that grief he hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying—twisted and knotted up around his heart—was gone.

“Let’s get inside, you’re freezing,” Shiro said, thumb stroking along the back of Keith’s neck before he dropped his hand to his sides.

“Sure,” Keith agreed, fishing the key to the cabin out of his pocket as they climbed the last two stairs. He put the key in the door, got it turned halfway then paused.

Suddenly, he felt unsure. His mom had offered to check the cabin for photos or momentos after his dad’s death, but Keith had asked her to let him. He hadn’t been able to explain why, but it felt important that he do it. But now standing there with the wind shipping at his neck, on the precipice of going inside, he was scared. He didn’t know if he’d cry again, or be unable to stay.

He didn’t even realize his hand was shaking on the handle until Shiro’s bigger one covered it.

“Together,” Shiro said, inching forward until his back was pressed up against Keith.

“Together,” Keith echoed, turning the key the rest of the way and pushing the front door open.

A sharp inhale of breath was the only sound as Keith crossed the threshold. Everything looked exactly the same as he remembered it. 

The cabin was a small two room cabin, with the main living area and kitchenette taking up the bulk of the space. Which wasn’t really saying much, since the entire place was only about three hundred square feet. Everything about the cabin, from the small kitchen table to the custom cabinets his dad had made, screamed, well—his dad. It wasn’t as if his mom had completely erased his dad from his childhood home, but there were signs everywhere of the things she’d done to make things look new and different. She didn’t need to tell Keith why, he knew—she was coping. 

But his dad’s cabin was like a place removed from time. His extra winter coat with the hole in the sleeves still hung by the door, the small fireplace was piled high with firewood just in case, and the stack of board games they used to play when they were kids sat atop the small, single bookshelf. Even the coffee mug that Keith had made his dad during his first semester of Ceramics 101 at community college when he was eighteen sat on the counter next to a tin of Folgers coffee.

It looked like his dad had just been here. Or maybe, like he might come back at any time. Standing there, it was easy to forget that would never happen.

“God, this brings back memories,” Shiro said quietly, walking around Keith to stand in the middle of room.

Keith nodded, inhaling slowly as he walked over to the fireplace and reaching for one of the photos on the mantle. It was Keith and his parents the day the cabin had officially been finished, the corner of the photo blurred by Shiro’s finger since he’d taken the picture. Beside it was another photo; in it, Keith’s dad had one arm thrown around Shiro and Keith’s shoulders as he laughed. At least half the photos had Shiro, or had been taken by Shiro.

“We had a lot of good times here,” Keith said.

“We really did,” Shiro agreed, reaching for the photo of Keith on his graduation day. “God, look how cute you were.”

“I’m still cute,” Keith shot back without thinking.

“Yeah, you are,” Shiro laughed, ruffling Keith’s hair. His cheeks heated at the compliment and Keith swatted his hand away as he laughed. 

There were so many memories— _good_ memories. It felt good to remember.

“So, how did you want to do this?” Shiro asked, looping an arm over Keith’s shoulder and leaning against him. 

Shiro’d always been like that—easy with his physical affection for Keith and touching him as if it were no big deal. And it’d always affected Keith, more than it probably should have. But after two years apart, barely being touched by anyone, the easy expression of physical affection between them soothed Keith.

It was hard to be here knowing his dad was never coming back, but there were so many good memories buried beneath the loss. Memories that Keith would have forever. And being here with Shiro, knowing his dad was being remembered and would never be forgotten, that felt nice too. He knew his dad would’ve been happy to have them both back in a place he loved so much.

“I dunno, just...look around I guess. We don’t really need to clear anything out, especially since Mom said she might come out here this summer with Kosmo to camp. I just, dunno...wanted to look around. You know how dad was about stashing things away, and I just thought maybe there’d be something here.”

Keith felt stupid saying it out loud. He didn’t even know what he thought might be there. His dad always kept the cabin stocked with basic essentials, but that was usually it. But the inexplicable urge to check for himself had been too strong.

“Sounds good,” Shiro said, squeezing his shoulder once before moving towards the kitchen. 

Over the next half hour or so, he and Keith poked around the cabin, going through cupboards and perusing the bookshelf, but they didn’t find anything. It wasn’t until Keith made his way into the small bedroom and began to go through the little wardrobe that he found something.

“Hey, Shiro, come here,” Keith yelled, pulling the small but heavy box out from behind his dad’s stash of vests and coats.

“Find something?” Shiro asked, appearing suddenly in the open doorway.

“I dunno, maybe. I’ve just...I’ve never seen this before.”

Shiro eyed the box in his hands, making his way across the room as Keith settled himself on the floor, back pressed against the small twin bed.

“What do you think is inside?” Shiro asked, sliding down to the ground beside Keith, their sides pressed together and his legs pulled up to his chest to make room for both of them in the small space.

“Only one way to find out,” Keith answered, setting the box on the floor in front of him and pulling the lid off.

At first, Keith wasn’t sure to make of it. It looked like a box of stationary and Keith couldn’t for the life of him figure out why his dad would have that since he never sent anyone letters. 

“Wait, I made this for dad when I was six,” Keith uttered, pulling out the card on the top. It was a childish drawing of a little stick figure version of Keith holding his dad’s hands. The words _Best Dad_ written across the top in massive, uneven letters. He remembered his mom helping him spell out the words for Father’s Day. 

Keith set it to the side, to see what was beneath it. It was a card he didn’t recognize—the drawing was neater but clearly still that of a child.

“Oh, he kept it,” Shiro whispered, plucking the card from Keith’s hand and flipping it open. Inside were the words _Happy Fathers Day, Love Shiro_.

“Dad wasn’t sentimental, I don’t understand,” Keith mumbled, reaching for the next one. The entire box was filled with cards, mostly from Keith and his mom, and some from Shiro. It looked like every card his dad had ever gotten. Time ceased to exist as he and Shiro went through every single one, reliving the memories.

“This is...wow,” Shiro said as they reached for the last card. The pile beside the box was towering.

“Yeah, wow,” Keith echoed, his heart doing a funny flip-flopping thing as he stared at the pile of cards in front of him. He could hardly believe that his dad had been saving them all and he didn’t know. He wondered if his mom knew. Probably—his parents never kept secrets from each other.

At the bottom of the pile of cards was a stack of papers or, more specifically, artwork— _Keith’s_ artwork. Pictures he’d made his dad over the years, first in crayon, then pencil, and eventually better works done in charcoal and paint. At the bottom was even a newspaper clipping of the copy of Keith’s first artwork featured in his college newspaper. He didnt have a fucking clue how his dad had gotten a copy of that. 

It was crazy because he knew without a shred of doubt how much his dad had loved him, how proud he’d been of Keith following his dreams even if they were outside of the box and never going to offer him financial stability. But seeing proof of that like this was something Keith had never expected.

“I didn’t know he kept all this,” Keith breathed. “Why do you think he hid it?”

“I don't know. Some people have a hard time letting other people know how they feel, or how much they matter. Your dad was more of a man of action than words maybe he just...couldn’t tell us how much it meant.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Keith said, thinking about himself and all the things he wanted to say that he never did, all the thoughts and feelings that he kept locked away like his dad’s box of memories.

“It looks like it's really coming down,” Shiro observed, rising to stand and moving to peer out the small window above the wardrobe. “Like a lot.”

“Oh, fuck,” Keith cursed, scrabbling upright to look outside for himself. Shiro was right, he could barely see outside for the blanket of white. Fuck. They’d been so preoccupied they’d completely lost track of time and watching the weather. “We better go.”

“Yeah,” Shiro agreed, scrambling to help Keith collect the cards and art and get them back in the box.

Keith shoved the box under his arm and strode to the front door, yanking it open. An ice cold gust of wind hit him in the face, snowflakes carried on the wind dusting the floor around his feet. What Keith had initially believed to be the beginning of storm was not the beginning, but a full-blown storm. Though Keith could clearly see his bright red truck in the distance, the street was coated in white and the road no longer visible. There wasn’t a chance in hell they were safely getting out of the cabin 

Keith slammed the door shut and turned to face Shiro.

“So, looks like we’re snowed in.”

Keith did his best not to panic. They were both adults. They could handle this. At least he was pretty sure they could. The prospect of being stuck in a tiny cabin excited Keith as much as it terrified him. He was only glad he'd decided to leave Kosmo at home with his mom.

“Oh, well—shit. We should probably call your mom or my grandparents so they don’t worry,” Shiro said, scrubbing a hand across his cheek before pulling his phone out of back pocket. “Double shit. No service.”

Keith set the box down on the floor and dug his own phone out of his hoodie pocket. “Fuck. I don’t have any service either.”

“Right. Now what do we do?”

“Find Dad’s tequila,” Keith laughed.

“Okay,” Shiro said, already moving towards the kitchen.

Oh. Well, Keith had been like eighty percent joking but if Shiro was down for it, then so was he. 

“You think he still keeps it in the cupboard with—yes, he does,” Shiro laughed, opening the small cupboard near the two burner stove. Inside was a collection of plastic grocery store bags shoved inside of another grocery bag, a massive mason jar of salted peanuts, and a bottle of tequila. “Good ol’, Tex.”

Two hours later, Keith had eaten so many peanuts he was pretty sure he never wanted to ingest another one in his entire life, and he’d drunk enough tequila that he was definitely going to be sorry tomorrow. But that was a problem for Tomorrow Keith. Today Keith was warm and comfortable—Shiro draped up along his side as they sat on the floor of the bedroom because it was the only room with a fireplace. 

It didn’t matter that Shiro smelled like apricot body wash, or that his hair was currently tickling Keith’s nose. It didn’t matter that Shiro was playing with Keith’s knee through the hole in his jeans and nuzzling his stupid pretty face into Keith’s shoulder like an overgrown puppy the same way he always did when he was drunk—making Keith ache with want for things he couldn’t have. It didn’t matter that in a few days, Keith would be getting back on a plane to go back home and leaving all of this behind.

It didn’t matter that Keith was painfully, desperately in love with the beautiful man in his lap, and had been half his life.

All that mattered was here and now. And right now, Keith was sober enough to be fully aware of his every action and Shiro’s reaction, but also tipsy enough to not care that he was returning Shiro’s touches with more ease than usual—running his hands through Shiro’s soft hair and earning him a groan. 

Somehow in the last minute or so he just kept inching lower and lower—whether on purpose or accident Keith had no fucking idea—and if Keith didn’t stop him, pretty soon Shiro’s face was gonna end up on his dick.

Keith didn’t stop him.

“Remember when we were kids and you told me you were gonna give me the moon,” Shiro mumbled into Keith’s chest.

“I was six,” Keith snorted, dragging his nails across Shiro’s scalp as Shiro continued to slump further down, rucking up Keith’s shirt in the process so that his nose was shoved into the soft flesh of Keith’s just above his waistband. “Besides, you loved the moon.”

“Can’t just go promising a boy the moon and never deliver,” Shiro mumbled, turning his face further into Keith’s stomach. Shiro’s breath was warm as he nuzzled his face into Keith’s stomach. “M’tired.”

“Come on, big boy. You need to sleep,” Keith said, slipping an arm beneath Shiro’s chest to try and heft him up. 

“Comfy,” Shiro mumbled, attempting to burrow into Keith.

Keith found that very hard to believe, what with the way Shiro’s body was contorted on the hard wooden floor, but then again Shiro always had been very flexible. Which was a thought Keith didn’t need right now.

“Up,” Keith instructed, palm flat against Shiro’s chest as he lifted him. Shiro’s reaction was slow, but his heartbeat was swift and erratic in his chest. He’d had the same amount to drink, but had always been a lightweight and he was clearly a lot more drunk than Keith was, possibly dehydrated too, if his racing heart was any indication. 

Keith did his best not to think of other things that might make Shiro’s heart race as he hefted him up and manged to get Shiro’s gorgeous but also very heavy ass off the floor and onto the bed. Shiro grunted when he did, furrowing up his nose and pointing at Keith.

“What?” Keith laughed.

“Was warm. You took my warm. Mean.”

“Oh my god,” Keith groaned, pushing Shiro back onto the bed. Shiro’s frown deepened but he allowed Keith to manhandle him down against the mattress—head hitting the pillow. Keith paused, then removed his shoes. “You need to sleep it off.”

“You too,” Shiro said, patting the bed beside him. The approximately four inches of bed not being taken up by his hulking frame.

“Pretty sure that bed isn’t big enough for both of us. I’ll just take the couch it’s not a big deal.” 

It was a pretty horrifying prospect, since the couch was a loveseat and Keith couldn’t even stretch his legs out on it when he sat, and also because the living room was fucking freezing compared to the bedroom which was so warm Keith had even removed his jacket half an hour prior—the warmth a combination of both of their bodies in a confined space and the small fire crackling in the corner. But if it was a tight squeeze for Keith, then it was out of the question for Shiro whose legs hung off the bed as it was.

Shiro’s bottom lip turned out as he rolled onto his side, his back hitting the wall. “Did it before.”

“Yeah, when I was seven and you were nine. We’re not kids anymore.”

“I’m cold, Keith,” Shiro whined, patting the bed harder. 

It was on the tip of Keith’s tongue to deny him, but Keith had never been able to say no to Shiro, and now was no different. He wasn’t sure if Shiro’s pout got more lethal, or Keith had simply gotten weaker, but whatever the cause, Keith found himself toeing off his boots and slipping into the small space Shiro had made. He grabbed ahold of the small flannel blanket folded over the footboard and pulling it over them both as he laid down. Even being slighter than Shiro, he barely fit—his body pressed together from his calves to their chests. 

Before Keith could get a word out, Shiro was emitting a soft happy sound as he slung an arm and leg over Keith.

“Comfortable?” Keith laughed, well aware that Shiro had zero sense of personal space. At least not with Keith. It was another thing he hadn’t let himself think about too much—another thing about Shiro he’d missed so damn much.

“Mhmm,” Shiro hummed, rubbing his head against the pillow.

Shiro’s body went heavy, though the weight on Keith’s side was pleasant not suffocating, and his breath was warm as it ghosted across Keith’s forehead. Though he didn’t dare move a muscle to check, just in case he was wrong, he was positive Shiro had fallen asleep. At least until a few minutes later when he broke the silence.

“Hey, Keith.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m really glad you’re home.”

“Me too,” Keith answered. Even snowed in on Christmas, even he couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt so happy. Being with Shiro had that effect. 

“Goodnight moon,” Shiro mumbled, voice thick and slow as honey.

Keith fought back a smile, glad Shiro couldn’t see his face. Shiro was so fucking drunk he didn’t even know what he was saying, and also so fucking cute it was almost painful.

“Sleep,” Keith instructed, rubbing his palm across Shiro’s lower back. Almost immediately, his breathing evened out into something slow and melodic, despite the rapid fluttering of his heartbeat.

It was a long time before Keith joined him.

***

Keith woke up slowly, unsure what had woken him at first. He was cocooned in the warmth of Shiro’s body—long arms and legs wrapped around him like a possessive koala. But it wasn’t Shiro. The other boy was still dead to the world—his mouth hanging open and a little puddle of drool on the pillow as he let out the softest little snores. Fuck, even that was cute. Snoring was not supposed to be cute. Ever.

 _And yet_. 

[ ](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/657586978887434240/659757305751142417/561E9F7E-6EC1-43E3-A3FD-2CFEF81A347B.jpeg)

Keith took the opportunity of knowing he wasn’t going to get caught to look—really look—at Shiro.

Everything about his face, from the slope of his nose to the elegant rise of his cheekbones and the jaw cut like steel, was familiar. He was so fucking beautiful with his dark lashes fanning out over his cheek and his full lips. Everything about Shiro was beautiful, and Keith’s heart was in his throat.

He didn’t know how he was supposed to go back to school knowing he was leaving his heart here.

Worse still, he didn’t know how he was going to survive late night video chats and texts with Shiro without accidentally screaming _I love you so much_ or _You have the most beautiful soul of any human alive and I want to draw you and paint you and immortalize your beauty for all the world to see and by the way I also want you to be mine._

It wasn’t that Shiro’s friendship wasn’t enough. It was everything.

It was just...well, Keith was an asshole and wanted more.

A groan startled Keith from his thoughts as Shiro shifted, opening his eyes then slamming then shut again.

“No.”

Keith snorted. Shiro was the world’s most obnoxiously cheerful morning person. Unless he was hungover. Then getting him up and back into the land of the living was like trying to wake a bear from hibernation.

As expected, Shiro grunted before grabbing the blanket and pulling it over his entire head, covering him and Keith’s face.

“It’s still morning, even if you do that,” Keith said, careful to keep his voice as quiet as possible, since he could only assume how Shiro’s head probably felt.

“Oh, s’Christmas,” he said, voiced garbled against the pillow. 

“Yeah,” Keith whispered. “Merry Christmas.”

Shiro turned his head, resting his cheek on the pillow and opening his eyes as his nose brushed against Keith’s. It was everything Keith had never let himself dream about—waking up beside Shiro like this. If he moved his head forward at all his lips would brush against Shiro’s.

“Merry Christmas, Keith.”

Keith inhaled a shaky breath, caught himself inching closer and closer until his lips were hoving less than an inch or so from Shiro’s, until they were almost kissing and— _Bam_.

Keith jumped back so fast he fell out of the bed, crashing onto the ice cold floor on his ass.

“Fuck,” he cursed.

Shiro mumbled something that sounded very much like _fuck_ despite the fact that he almost never cursed, fisting his hands into the blanket and pulling it tighter over his face. Fat lot of help he was. 

“Right, I’ll just go see what the noise was, hopefully it's not the Abominable Snowman here to devour my soul.”

Shiro grunted.

Keith shook his head, standing up and grabbing his discarded leather jacket. He tugged it on, pulling out the small knife he kept in front pocket and flipping it open as he pushed open the bedroom door and peeked into the living room.

What he saw was worse than any snow monster.

“Hi, sweetie,” his mom said, standing in the middle of the living room with a snow shovel and Ulaz, the town sheriff beside her. “I’m here to save you.”

She’d saved him alright. Saved him from ruining his friendship with Shiro in a moment of stupidity.

Keith flipped his knife shut, shoving it back in his pocket as he opened his mouth to ask his mom what the hell she was doing here. Unfortunately, Shiro spoke first, destroying any chance Keith had of acting like a normal adult.

“Keith,” Shiro called from the bedroom, voice just this side of petulant. “The bed is cold.”

“Perhaps I should wait outside,” Ulaz said, straightening his badge and practically running back out into the snowstorm. Not that Keith could blame him.

“Ah, Keith. I didn’t mean to interrupt uh...anything private.”

“Oh my god,” Keith groaned, entire body flushing with heat despite the frigid temperatures. “No. Just no. It’s not like that.”

“Alright,” she said evenly, though her look said quite clearly she didn’t believe him.

“Keith,” Shiro called again, clearly unaware of their visitors.

Before Keith could do anything to stop what was happening, there were the unmistakable sounds of struggling from the bedroom and then the door swung open again to reveal Shireo with his floof in disarray and standing up in all directions, poking out from beneath the blanket he had wrapped around himself like a shield. His eyes were shut, probably because it was so much brighter in the main living area, and his face was screwed up in obvious displeasure. Even with the rush of embarrassment running through Keith, the urge to corral Shiro back to bed, make him take some Advil, and stroke back his hair until he felt better was strong. 

Unfortunately, Keith seemed to be paralyzed because his body wouldn’t move, nor could he get himself to say something simple like _Hey, Shiro, we’re not alone_. Instead he just stared stupidly as Shiro opened his mouth once more. “Come back to bed, I’m cold.”

“Perhaps I should also wait outside,” his mom said, beginning to shuffle her feet backward. 

Shiro’s eyes flew open, the dawning realization of what he’d just said in front of Keith’s mom hitting him. It would’ve been funny if it involved anyone else. But since it very much did involve Keith, it was not funny. At all.

“Oh no, no, it’s not like that, Krolia,” Shiro insisted, wincing as he spoke, though from the headache or the potential implications of his words Keith had no idea.

“Sure,” she hummed, tapping the floorboard with her shovel. “Why don’t you two just, uh...fix yourselves up. I’ll just be outside with the Sheriff. Freezing my ass off but giving you some space like the exceptional mother I am.”

“Mom, we don’t need space,” Keith groaned, wishing for the earth to swallow him up. The only thing worse than waking up and realizing he’d slept with Shiro but _not_ slept with Shiro because his feelings were one-sided, was having his mom and the fucking town Sheriff there to bear witness to the sheer depth of his patheticness. 

“Uh huh,” she said, still moving backwards towards the door. “Five minutes, then I’m barging back in here whether you like it or not. Oh, and boys, Merry Christmas.”

Then she was gone, a gust of wind and snow fluttering into the living room before she disappeared.

“Keith, do you think we should talk?” Shiro asked, voice gravelly. His eyes were red rimmed and watering, and he looked like shit. He looked so pathetic, and guilt over dragging Shiro into all of this smacked Keith in the face. First he’d gotten them snowed in, now he’d dragged him into an embarrassing situation that was likely going to be town gossip in a few hours.

“No. No we’re good. Everything is good,” Keith insisted, averting his gaze from Shiro’s sad puppy eyes as he moved across the room to put on his boots.

If Keith ignored this, then everything would be fine. He was absolutely not going to ruin things with Shiro two days before he left town. Shiro meant too much to him, and Keith would not fucking risk that for anything, not even his own breaking heart.

***

The knock on his door was not entirely unexpected, but it was unwanted.

Keith tugged his hoodie over his head and thunked his head against the wall, hoping if he ignored the knocking his mom might think he was asleep and leave. It’d happened the last two times she’d tried to check on him. 

She knocked again, soft but firm, and Keith groaned, pressing his pencil against the paper hard enough that the tip broke off. Well, there went trying to draw to relax himself. He didn’t have a fucking pencil sharpener in here, it was downstairs in the office. Fuck.

“Keith, sweetie. I’m worried about you.”

Keith’s shoulders sagged. Knocking he could ignore. There was a certain amount of cognitive dissonance possible as long as his mom had knocked and nothing else. Pretending to be asleep didn’t feel too horrible. But this, this Keith couldn’t ignore. Which his mom knew. He loved and hated her for that.

“Door’s unlocked,” Keith yelled, slamming the lined notebook shut so his mom wouldn’t see the little doodles of Shiro that covered the pages.

Slowly the door was pushed open to reveal his mom’s smiling face, and in her hands were two steaming cups of hot cocoa overflowing with marshmallows. Behind her was Kosmo, wagging his tail as he made his way over and directly onto the center of Keith’s bed. He stroked his fur, scratching behind the ear. His stayed in the doorway, clearly waiting for permission to enter.

“Hi, baby.”

“Hi, Mom.”

“Can I come in? I brought your favorite. It’s even got freshly-ground cinnamon in it.”

“You know showing up with cocoa like this to weasel your way inside is cheating,” Keith laughed.

“I’m not cheating. I wrote the rule book.” She grinned and the last of Keith’s walls crumbled.

“Oh fine, come inside,” he said, feigning resignation and curling his legs beneath him to make room on the bed for her. 

“Thanks,” she said with an easy smile, slipping through the doorway. 

Keith couldn’t help but appreciate how much she always made sure Keith knew his boundaries mattered. He knew that if he had asked her to leave just now that she would have, no arguing or guilt trip. She was a good mom. A really good fucking mom. She hadn’t deserved the silent treatment Keith had been giving the world the last twenty-four hours.

Beside him, his phone buzzed loudly on the little table, Shiro’s name flashing across the screen. Another person who didn’t deserve the silent treatment.

Keith sighed. It wasn’t like he’d been ignoring either one of them with malice, he just hadn’t been able to make sense of the swirl of emotions raging inside of him, and Shiro and his mom were the two people in the world who always saw through his bullshit. He hadn’t known how to talk to either one of them when it meant coming face to face with things he didn’t feel capable of dealing with.

But there was only so long he could ignore them, and Keith was tired of hiding. So damn tired.

“So, life, huh,” she said, sitting at the edge of Keith’s bed and passing him the bigger mug of cocoa. She lifted her own and sipped, giving him a clear opening.

“Yeah,” Keith agreed with a heavy sigh. “Life.”

He wasn’t sure what else to say or how to begin to unravel the mess in his brain right then, so he settled for inhaling enough of his marshmallows that he didn’t have to say anything else. 

“Do you remember when you were fourteen and you asked me what would happen if you wanted to marry a boy instead of a girl one day?” she asked, surprising Keith with the question.

“Yeah,” Keith answered quietly. Despite the fact that he had the world's most accepting parents, he’d still been terrified to ask that question. All he’d wanted back then was to make them proud.

“I knew you meant, Shiro,” she said with absolutely no fucking warning. 

Keith’s heart nearly stopped beating, and he choked on his marshmallows. 

“I don’t...I mean. Fuck, how?”

Between them Kosmo whined, pawing at Keith who patted his belly to let him know he was fine. Appeared he dropped his face back down onto the comforter. 

“Oh, baby. You’ve been in love with him since you were ten. You looked at him like he hung the stars.”

“Jesus Christ, did Dad know too?” Keith asked, cupping his mug between both hands. He took a drink but could barely taste it.

“Of course he knew. You weren’t exactly subtle. When you were sixteen you asked him to his senior prom with a skywriter.”

“Yeah as _best friends_ ,” Keith choked, suddenly lightheaded. “Oh, fuck. Did Shiro know?”

His mom sighed. “I’m pretty sure Shiro is the only one who never realized, baby.”

“Small fucking miracles,” Keith grumbled, glad he was already sitting down. It saved him the embarrassment of dramatically falling down like he was in a harlequin romance novel. 

“Are you happy, Keith?” She asked. 

The question was so unexpected that Keith didn’t know how to answer it. He was happy with his mom, and happy to be back home with Shiro. Back in New York he was happy with classes, even if he was lonely sometimes. But at the bottom of all his happiness was a sense of unease—a feeling like if he rocked the boat too much, he’d lose it all.

“That’s what I thought.”

“I didn’t say anything,” he objected.

“Exactly.” She reached over and squeezed his leg. “If losing your dad has shown me anything, it's that life is too short to not seize every opportunity. It’s too short not to do the things you want to do and tell the people you care about that you love them. We only get one life.”

“Yeah, one. And if I fuck this up I don’t get another one.”

“Do you remember what you told me you learned on your first day of art summer camp when you were eleven?” She asked.

“Not a fucking clue.”

“Well, I do. You told me that you knew you were gonna be the best artist in the entire world because your teacher told you it wasn’t possible to make mistakes in art, that they were all just new opportunities to create.”

“Life isn’t art,” Keith said, voice coming out tighter than he’d meant to. He leaned back against the wall and pulled his knees up to his chest, blowing on the cocoa. 

“Life is what you make it, sweetie. Don’t be afraid of the things that feel like they might be mistakes. One day you might wake up old and grey and look back on those same mistakes and realize they were some of the best times of your life.”

“So you’re saying you think I need to tell Shiro I’m in love with him.”

She reached out, stroking the hair off his face before she spoke. “I’m saying I want you to have a big, full, beautiful, messy life that brings you so much joy you can’t contain it, Keith. But only you get to decide what that means.”

Keith swallowed around the lump forming in his throat, rubbing away the moisture forming in his eyes, as the bed shifted and his mom stood up. She leaned down, pressing a kiss to the top of his head before ruffling his hair.

“I’m gonna go heat up all the Christmas leftovers and see if I can make one of those gross everything-in-one-sandwich things your dad used to love to make the day after. You want one?”

“Sure,” Keith said, sniffling. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

“Take your time, sweetie,” she said, and then she was gone, leaving Keith alone with his thoughts.

Keith sat there, staring at his mug of cocoa and the mini marshmallows that had now melted into one giant blob. He took one last drink then set it down, picking up his phone instead. There were a few missed text messages from Shiro and two missed calls. 

_Merry Christmas. Uh again. Did I mention I feel like shit?_

_Keith, never let me drink again_

_Jiji made sugar cookies and there’s a Teddy bear that looks like you_

_Hey is everything okay?_

Keith pushed aside his guilt for ignoring the messages, and his fear at sending one now, and tapped on the message box to bring up the keyboard. Then he sent the single scariest text message of his entire life.

_Hey Shiro, we need to talk. Meet me at the pond at 8._

_P.S. Bring your skates._

***

Keith watched Shiro approach with a burning mix of excitement and trepidation, the lights on Shiro’s motorcycle lighting up the snow-lined banks as he pulled up beside Keith.

If nothing else, Keith would have the memory of Shiro on his bike forever—thick thighs spread wide over his motorcycle, chest barely contained in an almost-too-small leather jacket and a smile made of moonlight as he pulled off his helmet and shook out his hair.

“You sure know how to pull off edgy and ominous,” Shiro said, running a hand through his forelock and setting the helmet on his bike seat. Next he shrugged off his black backpack, setting it on the seat next to his helmet before leaning back against the bike—arms crossed over his chest and eyes searching as he stared at Keith. 

“Oh, uh...sorry about that,” Keith laughed nervously, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. 

In hindsight, he supposed his text message probably had read as a bit foreboding, but he’d been so nervous about sending it in the first place that he hadn’t stopped to really think about the potential implications of his words.

“It’s okay. I mean, everything is okay right?” Shiro asked, a hint of nervousness breaking through his facade of nonchalance. Shiro had never been very good at hiding his feelings. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Did you bring your skates?” Keith blurted, desperate to prolong this conversation.

“Of course I did. You asked me to,” Shiro said, patting his bulging backpack.

“Good. That’s good. Just...let's skate first.”

“Okay,” Shiro agreed, without question. He cocked his head to the side, still looking a little unsure but smiled at Keith as if to reassure _him_.

Shiro’s complete and utter faith in Keith made his heart flip flop uncontrollably—as if a thousand reindeer were stampeding on his heart. God, Keith loved him so fucking much.

“You ready for me to wipe the ice with your ass, Shirogane?” Keith asked, reaching into the hub of his truck and pulling out his skates. Truthfully, he hadn’t been on the ice since the last Christmas before he’d gone away to college, which was nearly three years ago, but he wasn’t about to tell Shiro that. 

Back when they’d been teenagers, they used to sneak out after dark and meet here at the edge of the Shirogane farm where the duck pond froze over every winter and spend hours skating. The world ceased to exist as he and Shiro skated circles around each other. Sometimes it was slow and silly, other nights they spent the night racing until they’d collapse, red-faced and sweaty. Sometimes they spent the nights seeing who could perform the stupidest tricks without landing on their ass, and sometimes they’d end up sitting in the back of Keith’s truck watching the stars with the skates forgotten in the back seat. No matter how the nights went, this spot had always been theirs and theirs alone.

Keith knew without a shred of doubt that he was going to confess tonight. Now that the idea had taken shape in his mind, the vines of hope had grown—twisting and winding their way into his heart. He also knew there was a good chance his confession would change things between them irrevocably, but it was something he knew he needed to risk now.

But before he did it, Keith needed this—needed the memory of one last night spent skating with Shiro beneath the wide open starry sky. He needed one last memory with Shiro here, in case it ended up being his last.

“Those are some big words for a little city boy,” Shiro laughed, completely unaware of Keith’s thoughts.

“I’m not little,” Keith shot back. He was a perfectly respectable five foot ten, thank you very much. “It’s not my fault you’re so fucking big.”

Shiro grinned, the sound of his backpack unzipping abnormally loud. “So you admit that I’m bigger than you, huh?”

“You’re bigger than everyone,” Keith grumbled, cheeks heating as he watched Shiro pull his skates from the backpack.

It was only when Shiro leaned against his bike and pulled off the blade guards on his skates that it occured to Keith that while he hadn’t set foot on the ice in years, Shiro most likely had.

Keith looked down at his own pair of old hockey skates—the toes scuffed from the last time he’d worn them and shoved them in garage without cleaning them first, and the blades dull. Then he looked over at Shiro and his skates which were, as always, pristine. The black skates were freshly shined, new white laces done up, and his blades looked sharp enough to slice a snowflake in half.

Keith was so fucked.

He did his best to not steal too many glances at Shiro as he bent over, tightening his laces. Tried not to pay attention to the bit of plaid he could see peeking out of Shiro's leather jacket or the way his cheeks were already flushed red from the cold. It wouldn’t do good to get distracted.

“I’m just gonna gonna warm up, I’m pretty out of practice,” Shiro announced, making his way to the frozen pond.

Keith hummed his acknowledgement, refusing to look up and watch Shiro’s ass move across the snowy ground and risk making an ass of himself. He rested his weight against the back tire as he finished doing up his own laces while wishing he hadn’t let his skates go without maintenance for so long. Then again, it wasn’t like he needed them in his poky little studio apartment in New York. Then again, he probably should’ve given this plan a little more forethought and at least sharpened his blades first or something. 

“Alright here I—” but Keith stopped, frozen to the spot at the sight of Shiro doing speed laps around the pond. He took the edges sharply, body leaning down so he could graze his fingertips over the icy surface as he rounded a corner and let out a whoop. He wasn’t out of practice, the fucking liar.

“Come on Keith, the ice is perfect,” Shiro yelled, arms pumping as he sped up racing towards Keith.

Keith however was rooted to the spot at the sight of Shiro—white hair lit up like a halo in the moonlight—racing towards him with the world’s biggest shit-eating grin. Before Keith could step out onto the ice and join him, Shiro was just a few feet away about to crash headfirst into Keith. Then he did something worse, or at least Keith’s ego thought so.

He pulled off a perfect hockey stop, blades scraping the ice and kicking up a gust of snow at Keith’s face.

[](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/657586978887434240/659757277439590438/B3767B16-34AA-4E35-BC31-CF6354C0D7AC.jpeg)

“Hey,” Shiro said, trying to control his smile.

“Fuck you,” Keith laughed.

“Come on, city boy, lets see if you’ve still got it,” Shiro crowed, waggling his fingers as he began to skate backwards, giving Keith a cheeky wink.

God, the fucking show off.

“I told you, I’m not a city boy,” Keith countered, stepping onto the ice where he promptly fell on his ass. “Shit.”

In two seconds flat Shiro was back at his side, offering him a hand up. He’d thankfully refrained from spraying Keith in another gust of snow.

“Need any help?”

“No,” Keith insisted, though he took Shiro’s hand anyway. His hands were cold as ice already, grip firm as he hefted Keith into a standing position as if he were light as a feather.

As expected, Keith’s blades weren’t sharp enough to have a good grip and he wobbled as he tried to skate a second time—feeling even more unsteady than he would’ve expected. Logically, Keith knew that he was likely to be a bit out of practice after so long off the ice, but knowing it logically and having Shiro bear witness to him looking like a newborn cow learning to walk on the ice were two very different fucking things.

“Easy,” Shiro murmured, voice soothing as he kept his grip on Keith’s hand and moved his other hand to wrap around Keith’s forearm to steady him.

Oh. Well maybe this wasn’t so bad after all. 

“Just move your feet slow and—”

“It’s not my first time on the ice,” Keith snorted. “I’m just a little out of practice is all. And maybe my blades are a little dull too.”

“Fine, fine,” Shiro said, releasing his grip on Keith’s arms and holding his hands up in mock surrender.

Keith wanted to flip him off, but it required too much concentration and instead he stumbled—saved from falling on his face only by Shiro’s quick moves.

“You were saying?” he said.

“Shut up. Don’t look so happy about this,” Keith retorted, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. It was hard to be pissed off at himself about his stupid dull skates and his inability to stay upright when Shiro clearly took so much pleasure in the entire situation. Shiro’s happiness was worth anything, even Keith’s loss of pride

“I guess you’ll just have to come back home more often to practice,” he teased, returning his hands to Keith’s elbows. “I hope you do.”

There was no malice in his words, no passive-aggressiveness or anger about lost time. It was merely an acknowledgement of his desire to not lose Keith again. It made Keith’s heart swell with affection as he marveled that he’d managed to survive two years without this. Now that he had it again, the prospect of losing it was unfathomable.

It wasn’t that Keith couldn’t live without Shiro, it was that he didn’t want to.

“Yeah, guess I might,” Keith echoed, finding it nearly impossible to steady himself with Shiro touching him like that. 

As they moved together Keith quickly found his footing, gliding across the ice easily. Despite his improvement, Shiro didn’t loosen his grip and Keith didn’t ask him too.

It was nice to be doing this again, to be so close with their hands clasped and the wind whipping through their hair. The air was freezing, Keith’s hands equally so—but inside, his body burned.

“Do you trust me?” Shiro asked.

Keith didn’t hesitate to answer. “Yes.”

“Good,” Shiro whispered, releasing Keith’s elbows then grabbing ahold of Keith’s hands. His body shifted and almost immediately Keith knew what was coming as he fell in line, letting Shiro begin to swing him around.

They hadn’t done this in years, not since they were kids trying to see who could hold on the longest before inevitably crashing into the snowbanks. Faster and faster they went, Keith’s euphoria mounting in a crescendo until it peaked, laughter bubbling out of him that echoed through the dark.

Shiro’s lips turned up at the corners—a smile that painted across his face in strokes of moonlight—before joining Keith in laughter. It was the most beautiful thing Keith had ever heard or seen and as they spun—their bodies tethered together by joined hands while they circled the ice—Keith felt free.

They came to a stop slowly, Keith’s chest burning as he inhaled huge gulps of frigid air. In front of him Shiro looked equally fatigued, his cheeks and nose bright red and his eyes wide.

“God, I missed this,” Keith laughed, as if he could do nothing but. 

Shiro smiled so big his eyes wrinkled in the corners. His joy was the single most beautiful thing Keith had ever seen. Behind Shiro the sky was lit up with stars, but none shone brighter than the ones in Shiro’s eyes. He was beautiful. So beautiful.

And Keith was so fucking in love with him.

“I missed _you_ ,” Shiro said, as if he wasn’t making Keith fall more and more in love with him every second. 

“I love you,” Keith blurted, then slammed his mouth shut. Fuck.

He had plans. He had a picnic blanket hidden in the backseat of his truck and a massive thermos of hot cocoa and the last of his mom’s gingerbread cookies Shiro loved so much. He had an entire goddamn speech planned, and he’d gone and blurted it out now in the middle of a frozen pond and—

And Shiro was kissing him.

Fuck, Shiro was kissing him.

Any desire to stop and ask questions was shoved to the side as Shiro’s cold hands rested on Keith’s cheeks and he pressed their lips together. 

All too soon, Shiro pulled back, dropping his forehead to Keith’s as he whispered, “You love me.”

“I mean, yeah. I thought it was obvious.”

“Not to me,” Shiro murmured, stealing another chaste kiss. “God, not to me. Keith I’ve...god I’ve loved you for so long.”

It was Keith’s turn to be surprised. “You...what.” 

“I thought you knew,” Shiro confessed.

“No, I fucking didn’t,” Keith said, unsure if he wanted to cry or laugh or do something else entirely. “So all this time you’ve just—”

“Been completely and madly in love with you.”

“But I left,” Keith whispered, giving voice to the fear.

“I didn’t begrudge you that, Keith. Ever. You needed to go off and find yourself. Find your happiness. It’s all I ever wanted for you. You had dreams bigger than this town and—”

“You,” Keith interrupted. “You’re my dream, you’re my happiness.”

“But your art,” Shiro whispered, thumb stroking over the side of Keith’s cheek. “You love school.”

“I mean, technically I hate school. But I love art. And I’m gonna get my degree and finish but when I’m done I want...I want to come back home. I want to come back to you. If you’ll have me.”

Shiro didn’t answer, at least not in words. Instead he buried his face in Keith’s neck, letting out a soft little hiccuping sound as he wrapped his arms around Keith’s waist and lifted him up before spinning him on the ice.

“Is that a yes?” Keith asked, tightening his arms around Shiro’s neck.

“Yes, a million times yes,” Shiro laughed, setting him back down. 

“So does that mean I don’t need to pull out all the stops to win your heart, because I did have a picnic basket and a blanket in the truck just in case. A little birdie reminded me I promised you the moon once and I’d like to give it to you. If you’ll let me. And my heart. I’ll give you my heart, it’s already yours anyway. It’s always been yours.”

“You can’t just fucking say things like that,” Keith,” Shiro sniffled, swiping at his face.

“Why not? It’s true.”

“Because you’re gonna ruin me from ever loving anyone ever again.”

“Fine, then let me fucking ruin you. You’re mine, Shiro. Mine.”

“And you’re mine,” he whispered. “My moon.”

“That was so fucking sappy,” Keith choked, eyes brimming with tears at the words nonetheless.

“Look who’s fucking talking,” Shiro laughed, pulling Keith against his chest and burying his face in Keith’s hair. Keith felt him pressing kisses to the top of his head, rubbing his hands up and down Keith’s back as if he couldn’t believe he could.

Keith was so fucking happy.

***

Unhappy.

Keith was unhappy.

He wasn’t at all prepared to head back to New York and his empty apartment and his shitty part-time job and never-ending deadlines. He wanted to stay where he was forever—face buried smack dab in the middle of Shiro’s perfect voluminous pecs.

“You said that out loud,” Shiro snorted, chest rumbling with his laughter. 

Keith grunted, shoving his face deeper into Shiro’s chest. One of the buttons on his plaid flannel shirt was digging into Keith’s nose but he made no attempt to move. Where he was now, he could hear the steady thud of Shiro’s heart beating, feel the warmth radiating out of his body in waves, and smell the lingering scent of his body wash. 

“You’ll be back home before you know it, baby,” Shiro said, sliding his fingers into Keith’s hair and down the back of his head.

“Not making me wanna leave,” Keith mumbled, unable to contain the little grunt of pleasure when Shiro’s blunt nails grazed across his neck.

Shiro laughed, dropping his hands from Keith’s hair. “Better?”

“Nuh uh, worse,” Keith protested, reaching back and trying to get Shiro’s hands back in his hair. 

“No way, sweetheart. If you miss this flight you’re gonna end up on the first bus back to New York again. Unless you want to relive—”

“Nope. Not a chance in fucking hell,” Keith insisted, reluctantly pulling his face out of the comfort that was Shiro’s chest. He missed the warmth immediately.

Fuck, the next few months were going to be long. 

“It’s not goodbye, remember,” Shiro said, cupping the side of Keith’s face. He stroked his thumb over Keith’s bottom lip. “You promised. Not goodbye. Just until later.”

“I know. And I promise. I promise, Shiro,” Keith whispered, leaning into the touch.  
He knew Shiro was doing his best not to mention what had happened before, knew how much he didn’t want Keith to feel guilty. But Keith also knew that as much as Shiro trusted him, the insecurity was nagging at him. It was written in the little furrow between his eyebrows and the way he kept chewing on his bottom lip.

“I’m gonna call you so much you’re going to want to throw your phone into the pond.”

”Seriously don’t think that’s possible,” Shiro laughed, still stroking Keith’s cheek. 

Keith felt the eyes of several other passengers waiting to get through the front door to the security line boring into the back of his head, but for once he didn’t care. They could stare all the fuck they wanted.

“You will call though? Right? I know you’ll be busy and it’s okay if you are but—“

“I’ll call,” Keith interrupted. “I promise.”

Then he rose onto his tiptoes as high as he could, pulling Shiro’s face down so that he could kiss his forehead. A pretty pink blush spread across the bridge of Shiro’s nose and settled on his cheeks, so Keith did it again, delighting in the way the tips of Shiro’s ears went bright red. 

“Keith, I—” but Shiro was cut off.

“Sweetie, you forgot your earphones,” his mom yelled, winding her way through the crowds and waving her hand. As if Keith could possibly miss her.

“Thanks, Mom,” he said, refusing to blush, especially since Shiro was doing it enough for the both of them now. 

“Oh no, I’ve interrupted again,” she said, looking between them both. 

Shiro, if possible, went even redder before he dropped his hands and coughed, as if they’d been caught having sex in the middle of the airport and not just talking. Fuck, he was cute. Keith was going to miss him so damn much. For the first time in his life, he planned to take full advantage of his unlimited calling plan.

“Right, I’ll just go back to the truck and wait for Shiro,” she announced, pulling Keith in for one last bone crushing hug. “I’ll miss you. Have a safe flight.”

“I’ll miss you too, Mom,” Keith said, kissing her cheek then watching her disappear back into the crowds.

“So, what were you going to say before?” Keith asked, turning his attention back to Shiro.

“I uh...that is,” he paused, scrubbing a hand across his jaw. “I’m gonna miss you, Keith.”

“I’m gonna miss you too,” Keith said, throwing his arms around Shiro for one last hug, burying his face in Shiro’s shirt and inhaling as if he could bottle of the memory of the way Shiro sounded, the way he smelled, the safety of being wrapped in his arms.

“Last boarding call for flight 0605,” the intercom blared.

“Fuck, I gotta go,” Keith said, still not pulling out of the hug despite his words.

“Okay,” Shiro whispered, lifting Keith’s hand and pressing a kiss the back. He angled his head down to whisper in Keith’s ear. “My moonbeam.”

Keith inhaled sharply. It was so fucking sappy and also the sweetest thing in the entire world. Keith’s heart fluttered in his chest and he had to fight back the urge to kiss Shiro breathless.

“Stop being cute or I’ll miss my flight,” Keith grumbled, reluctantly releasing Shiro from the hug and shoving his hands into his jacket pockets if only to keep him from touching Shiro again. His hands itched to run over his full lips, to trail down the side of his elegant neck and graze his palms over the breadth of Shiro’s chest until his hands settled on Shiro’s tiny waist. 

Fuck. No. He didn’t have time for these thoughts.

“No cute. Got it,” Shiro said, mock saluting Keith. Somehow even that was cute too, the absolute fucker.

“Just...I can’t look at your stupid perfect face or I won’t be able to leave,” Keith said, meaning it to come out as a joke but not really all that surprised when his voice cracked.

Shiro’s mouth fell open in a small little O of surprise, then he yanked Keith forward by front of his leather jacket, slamming their lips together in a bruising kiss that was over far too fast.

“I fucking love you, Keith Kogane,” Shiro yelled, earning him a few funny glances and several amused smiles, then he started to walk backward, disappearing into the crowd.

**6 Months Later**

Keith cranked down his window, letting out a sigh of relief as the fresh summer air filtered into the truck. It was unseasonably warm, even for the end of June, and Keith was slightly regretting wearing his black jeans and long sleeve shirt. He pushed the sleeves up to his elbows and clicked on the blinker, switching lanes when the _Shirogane Family Farm_ sign came into view.

Beside him Kosmo whined, climbing up onto all fours and pressing his nose to the window.

“I know, buddy. I miss Shiro too,” Keith said, patting Kosmo’s stomach before turning down the long dirt road.

The last time Keith had been here everything had been dusted in white. Now it was green, green, green. Wildflowers wound their way up the wooden fence posts, the roses that lined the parking lot were in full bloom, and the sounds of birds chirping filled the air. As Keith parked the truck he allowed himself a second to close his eyes and inhale deeply, his nerves filtering away at the scent of apple blossoms and fresh air. Fuck, he missed this so much.

Kosmo on the other hand didn’t seem to appreciate the beautiful surroundings, climbing into Keith’s lap and whining as his tail thumped loudly against the leather seat.

“Alright, alright,” Keith laughed, pushing away Kosmo’s snout from his cheek which was now covered in dog slobber. Kosmo barked, impatience evident as he crowded into Keith’s lap. Not that Keith could blame him. He felt the same—he was just doing his best not to show up to surprise Shiro looking like an overeager puppy.

Kosmo barked again and Keith shook his head, opening the door. Immediately, Kosmo jumped down, running in circles before darting off under the fence and across the field.

Well, okay then.

Keith would probably find Kosmo later napping in the shade of an apple tree or gorging himself in the strawberry field. He always had loved the farm and knew it as well as he knew his own house, so Keith wasn’t too worried. At least not about that. 

A rush of nerves assaulted Keith as he stepped out of the truck—rocks and dirt crunching beneath his Converse. This was just Shiro. Shiro, who he’d spent the last six months talking to on the phone every single day—most nights falling asleep on Facetime to the sight of Shiro’s beautiful face.

Those first few weeks Keith had been afraid the distance between them would cause another rift,but that fear had been for nothing. While it wasn’t the same as seeing Shiro in person—being able to kiss and touch and hug him—they emailed and texted and talked constantly. Keith missed him, but it was a good kind of missing— like knowing there was a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. 

Every long day of classes or work was made easier by the prospect of hearing Shiro’s voice.

But now Keith was here, back home, and he was fucking nervous. It didn’t make any sense. He’d known Shiro his entire life—knew Shiro better than he knew himself.

But apparently there was no amount of logic that could assuage a lovesick idiot. 

Sucking it up, Keith slammed the truck door before making his way out onto the farm. He could hear Lance loudly talking inside the front building and swiftly ducked his head down so as not to be seen as he passed it. There was plenty of time to catch up. Later.

Right now all Keith wanted was to see Shiro in person.

Now all he needed to do was _find_ him. Thankfully, that turned out to be even easier than Keith could have hoped. Not ten minutes after setting off in pursuit of Shiro, Keith spotted him beneath the shady branches of the giant peach tree at the edge of the orchard. He had on a pair of sinfully tight jeans and a white t-shirt that was definitely a size too small—the hem of it rising up to reveal a sliver of pale skin and a dark treasure trail as Shiro reached up and wrapped his metal fingers around a peach.

For a moment Keith was rooted to the spot, eyes riveted to the curves of Shiro’s body. Pretty. He was so fucking pretty. A tiny phone or laptop screen didn’t do him justice. 

Then Shiro turned and gifted Keith the prettiest sight of all—a smile. A breathtaking, face-splitting, earth-shattering smile that left Keith feeling as if the wind had been knocked out him. A smile that was there because Shiro had seen Keith. 

“Keith, what are you—” Shiro started to say, then simply stopped as if the surprise of seeing Keith was too much. The peach fell from his hand, falling to the grass beside Shiro’s boots and rolling a few feet away. His surprise quickly gave way to something else as he took off at a sprint towards Keith, bracing his prosthetic on the small fence that separated the orchards from the rest of the farm and leaping over it like a fucking ninja.

The sight of Shiro running to him like that was something out of one of the cheesy movies his mom liked to watch, and was apparently enough to shake Keith from his _fuck I love my boyfriend_ stupor and he took off at a run towards him. 

Their bodies crashed together in the middle of the cabbage field, mud and leaves squashed beneath Keith’s new red Converse. He didn’t fucking care. All he cared about was seeing Shiro. Shiro, who was letting out a soft little half laugh as he cupped Keith’s face in his hands and kissed him over and over as if he couldn’t believe Keith was real, when the truth was the opposite. Keith couldn’t believe that after a lifetime of loving the beautiful man in front of him, Shiro was really his. 

“You’re here,” Shiro mumbled, still pressing sloppy half kisses to the side of Keith’s mouth and his cheek, anywhere he could reach. “How are you here?”

“A plane,” Keith said, earning him a derisive snort.

“Smart ass,” Shiro laughed.

Keith was saved from responding to that by Shiro kissing him in earnest—lips sliding together sweetly as Shiro’s left hand tangled in Keith’s hair. Keith went weak in the knees as Shiro deepened the kiss, wrapping an arm around Keith’s lower back to support him. 

Shiro’s lips were soft and pliant as he kissed Keith. It wasn’t anything desperate or needy, just the slow, luxurious exploration of Keith’s mouth, almost as if Shiro wanted to relearn him. The warmth of the sun beat down on the back of Keith’s neck as Shiro’s hand slipped down to toy with the little bit of hair there that had gotten longer over the last few months, twisting it around his finger and apparently refusing to let go. He kissed over and over until nothing in the world existed except the sweet scent of summer in the air and the even sweeter taste of peaches on Shiro’s lips.

Unable to resist the urge, Keith reached up to twine his arms around Shiro’s neck and press their foreheads together, when Shiro pulled out of the kiss—his eyes bright and his face still lit up with a smile brighter than the midday sun. 

“Hi,” he whispered.

“Hey,” Keith echoed, cheeks hurting from the force of his smile.

“Thought you were coming home tomorrow.”

“I wanted to surprise you,” Keith said, nudging his nose against Shiro’s. “You like your surprise?”

“More than anything,” Shiro said, voice dripping with so much sincerity it punched all the air from Keith’s lungs. He didn’t think he’d ever stop feeling lucky that Shiro looked at him and saw the world— wouldn’t ever stop appreciating that he could hold his own world in his arms.

“I miss you so much, baby,” Shiro said, eyes wide and the little bit of white hair falling into his eyes blowing in the wind.

“I missed you too,” Keith said, burying his face in Shiro’s neck and hugging him close.

Home.

Keith was home.

**Author's Note:**

> Come scream about Sheith with me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/goldentruth813)
> 
> And if you loved the art here come give it some love on [twitter](https://twitter.com/loppadraws/status/1210541343178739712) <3


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